


Crimson Flower, Purple Sky

by SerArthurHeath



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Angst, Death, F/F, F/M, Gay Sex, Guilt, Heterosexual Sex, Lesbian Sex, M/M, Post-Canon, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Romance, Slow Burn, Spoilers, Trauma
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-27
Updated: 2021-02-02
Packaged: 2021-03-06 22:12:59
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 14
Words: 55,794
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26066299
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SerArthurHeath/pseuds/SerArthurHeath
Summary: An extension/reimagining on the Fire Emblem Three Houses story from the Crimson Flower route starting and looking at Edelgard's thoughts throughout and her feelings and growing relationship with female Byleth and then what happens after the story canonically ends.SPOILERS FOR CRIMSON FLOWEREdelgard was moments from a victory she wasn't sure was even possible when she lost the one person with whom she could see a future of any sort for herself. Steeped in grief and motivation drained from her, she knows she has to continue with her war to avoid betraying the students she has dragged into her ideological conflict with her and to ensure her Professor's death is not in vain. Luckily, sometimes you get breaks from fate that you don't think you deserve and the ones we lose come back to us
Relationships: Dorothea Arnault/Petra Macneary, Edelgard von Hresvelg/My Unit | Byleth, Felix Hugo Fraldarius/Bernadetta von Varley, Felix Hugo Fraldarius/Sylvain Jose Gautier, Ferdinand von Aegir/Hubert von Vestra, Jeritza von Hrym/Constance von Nuvelle, Linhardt von Hevring/Lysithea von Ordelia, Lorenz Hellman Gloucester/Claude von Riegan, Marianne von Edmund/Hilda Valentine Goneril, Marianne von Edmund/Hilda Valentine Goneril/Claude von Riegan, Sylvain Jose Gautier/Mercedes von Martritz
Comments: 24
Kudos: 93





	1. Bloodied sky

**Author's Note:**

> I decided to write this for 3 reasons
> 
> 1) as flawed as she is, Edelgard is a highly interesting character that often gets completely misunderstood in her actions and intentions, and I wanted to give a direct window into her motivations throughout her controversial decisions (I think she and Rhea are both wrong by the way, but her aim is a good one)  
> 2) I love the potential of an Edie-Byleth relationship, especially with Byleth fleshed out more than the player-insert avatar the game requires  
> 3) it's a crying shame that Crimson Flower, the route in which fighting TWSITD after the main battle with the Church, makes the most sense and had the character with the strongest motivation to fight them later AND makes it clear that this does canonically happen, stops short after so few chapters and doesn't let us have that conflict. 
> 
> Hopefully I can iron out all these issues in my work 
> 
> There will be sex, and I've chosen other (aside from Edie-Byleth) pairings to include and I may even have sex scenes for other pairings, but it won't happen for a few chapters at least.

" Lady Edelgard... Your Majesty... I'm sorry. Your soldiers have searched everywhere for days now. The Black Eagles have checked every piece of rubble small enough to move. I've sought signs of life myself in every cranny we know of the monastery and its surroundings. The professor is nowhere to be found. As crushing as it is, and as highly as I know you regarded her, I think we have to assume she didn't survive the monster's attack"

Words Edelgard expected but was not ready for, not even the slightest bit.

_Oh, Sensei._

She didn't move from her window as Hubert left,knowing she would need the time alone, for one minute of weakness. Only Hubert would dare expect that of her. 

She stared at the view, the bloody red sky, with dark wine clouds and the fires of strife scarring the forest around them. Garreg Mach, wounded in battle and bleeding into the sky.

She was too exhausted to process this, and she'd been hardening herself for so many years now that feelings were usually something she experienced as a mildly curious outsider looking in, examining a emotion with something close to dispassionate scientific interest. Of course, those that she did truly feel were usually overwhelming and terrifying, which was why the warm sensations she noticed when she spoke to or even looked at her professor had taken so long to grasp. 

Even before she'd spent these 5 days overworked, overstressed and awake (though sleeplessness was a familiar bed-fellow for the new Emperor, and dreams a generally unwelcome one) Edelgard had felt tired though. Ever since the battle had ended.

She had never even truly thought that her mentor would come to her side, she knew what she was doing would be seen as extreme and even insane by many, but she had tried, whilst she had furtively influenced events as best as possible, to make her motivations clear as best as possible, as honestly as possible. Giving hints and probing as to what Byleth's thoughts had been, making it clear that the Agarthans' methods were not of her choosing, and that "The Flame Emperor" was not responsible itself for certain heinous acts that she had honestly had no idea would happen and had personally condemned to her despicable, transient allies on several occasions. If she was damned, and surely she was (but it was worth it), it would be down to that association over anything else.

She had let Byleth deeper into her heart and her past than anyone she had ever met before. Because, she admitted to herself now that woman appeared to be gone forever, she loved her. 

That feeling had been all-consuming for someone usually so in control of her mind and her heart. She had cursed the constant distraction more than once, though now she yearned to have it back, the numbness inside her, the fuzziness in her head infinitely worse. 

She was used to feeling hard, cold even, like the weapon she had been forged into, one broken and remade more than once. But before this, she had never felt empty. Both empty as if she had drained of all drive and vitality, she who had been driven by fervour every day of her remembered life, though she was well on her way to achieve her goals, but also incomplete like a part of her had been cut out. No. Torn out.

She had heard that people who had suffered great pain or anguish sometimes sought oblivion in drugs or death to escape their agony, maybe once she had even considered such an option before she had found a different response to her past and something to live for, but she presumed the disorientation or lack of mind and memory were what made that bearable. This void inside her was intolerable, but she didn't know how to break down its walls. She'd always been much better at building them up, though her emotions sometimes still managed to find a life and flight of their own despite that. 

She'd never planned to fall for anyone. 

At first she had been impressed and annoyed that this formidable fighter had taken her test of her fellow House Leaders' abilities and neutralised it with ease, ironically except an entirely unplanned attempt on her own life that Byleth's interference in would leave Edelgard eternally grateful (That had been embarrassing, especially as she hadn't thought the clumsy bandit leader posed a truly dangerous threat to any of them, but she'd forgotten he'd have no idea who her true employer was and had been utterly unprepared for his blind charge - an unacceptable error she could never repeat). Before that, though, instilled by first glance and only fuelled by watching the mercenary in balletic action in battle, she had felt raw attraction. Tall, enough that Edelgard's eyes were stuck level with her well-endowed chest, and fit, with powerfully muscular thighs and toned arms that handled her sword short with alternating brute force and needle-like grace, she combined a warrior's athleticism with a woman's ample curves, soft and hard in undulating waves. Her face had been carved from marble, high cheek bones and strong but feminine features, with penetrating eyes that were as dark blue as the deepwater of a lake in the evening and cascades of thick hair of the same hue beneath a simple band. 

She pictured her mentor now, probably unable to ever see and surreptitiously stare at that beautiful face again. 

_Someone should draw her, so we can all remember the one who gave our revolution so much. She deserves to be remembered._

A trickle of some sort of emotion ran through, her, too briefly to identify what, Edelgard too tired to even tell if it was a positive or negative feeling.

Those feelings had led her to genuinely try to recruit this mystery warrior for her Empire, especially given that she was Jeralt's child and rumours said that Jeralt, the famous ex-captain of the Knights of Seiros, and the Church had had a serious quarrel. But when Byleth had been elevated to teacher at the academy, and Edelgard's own in addition to that, she had been skeptical and a little irate. She had proven she could fight and direct others in battle, but that was a far cry from teaching officers, and part of Edelgard's need to attend the Monastery (though there had been many) was to improve her own leadership and combat skills and those of her officers to prepare for this war that she had just started and suspected would be the only way to free the continent. She couldn't afford even a gifted novice to waste what she knew would be valuable time.

It became quickly apparent, though, that the mercenary was absolutely masterful in her role. In combat itself she was imperious, and what impressed Edelgard most of all was her dedication in her spare time to further polish her skills in every form of fighting and to spar with and learn from the more experienced Faculty and Knights available in their proficiencies, allowing her to teach from a position of expertise. She learnt magic to help teach that, she drafted in the best technical tutors and assigned them perfectly to the correct student and tweaked the training with personal instruction from herself, excelling even in finding things to work on even in areas that the student had more raw ability than her: Edelgard had been sure that the swordswoman would not be able to add much to her own axe-fighting skills but every session she found ways for her to improve. 

She gave incredible tutorials on leadership and tactics and Edelgard realised later on that she fostered those skills in her students constantly in day to day life as well. She drew the best out of her students individually, finding the best approach for them, and befriended them, building unity with group exercises and meals, spending time with them in the evenings, challenging them all and coaxing every possible improvement from them whilst opening up their fears and feelings, taking care of them pastorally as much as educationally. She was an inspired tactician, and commander of battalions, and taught Edelgard and others those skills directly and by observation. She had helped every one of the Black Eagles on a personal level, whilst aiding other students as they needed, amazingly stealing many officers from other houses to their own and somehow even into Edelgard's own cause.

  
Attraction had become respect had become admiration had become, she had to admit as her teacher undid several of Edelgard's plots by her own hand, infatuation. And she thought that might even be stronger than that, maybe, though she had no experience with the feelings she felt when she behold or considered her, love.

That had also been fostered in watching the meaningful gifts her teacher gave their class, used as encouragements and consolations, and the way she balanced criticism with praise and reassurance as they all learnt beneath her. She would bring Edelgard gifts that showed a firm understanding of her practical needs and motivations, but also the inner pleasures and desires she thought she had kept hidden from the world, down to soft toys and bunches of flowers she had kept on her bedside, dried out to keep forever after they had burnt through their brief, fragile lives. Every tea they shared in peaceful meditation, every meal they sat together for, every hymn they sang together in the cathedral, every battle they had fought side by side in a bloody but graceful dance and every talk and trip to the sauna together that she dared to hope meant something more. It was so hard to read into her stoic sensei's feelings with that mask of serenity she had only seen crack when Byleth's father had died (a senseless, cruel act that had filled Edelgard both with simmering rage for the loss of a good man and the hurt to her dear teacher, as well as selfish fear that her own indirect association with such an act would destroy her friendship - for she thought they had progressed to that now - and damn her soul forever. She had been glad that she had been the one to put an axe in Solon's skull and her only consolation for not doing the same to Kronye was that Byleth herself had beaten her to vengeance she couldn't begrudge her). But surely these were signs she might be interested in Edelgard in return? 

As she realised how much it mattered to her what her mentor thought of her, a sensation she had never felt towards anyone else, she had tried time after time to make it clear that their house's clashes with Edelgard's secret persona were not as simple as good versus bad, that the Church were suppressive and ruthless and regressive and the world they lived in forced good people to make hard decision to protect those they were responsible for. She had taken Byleth, in a gamble but one her heart told her she had to take, to witness her coronation not only to signal seperation of the Church whilst still validating her rise with the presence of one said to be beloved of the Goddess, but also to help show what Edelgard had been through and how she wanted to change the world. She had, without planning to, revealed more of her tormented past (that which she could recall) to her than anyone before, bared her soul. Hinted that she was the Flame Emperor and that the Flame Emperor was not her foe. All getting in her excuses early, and she had been sure once Byleth had led her fellow students to repel Edelgard's assault on the Grand Mausoleum that her hero would be set against her by the vengeful Archbishop. She had half expected, and accepted, that she might be deservedly smitten by the woman with whom she was smitten if Hubert were a fraction too slow in his rescue attempt.

But that hadn't happened.

After a momentous pause in which Edelgard felt her life and value weighed in the now eerie green eyes of her idol, a turbulent, torn reflection of the open raw fury in those of Rhea (no, Seiros - if they were to fight a god and a monster they might as well use its proper name), a fleeting fraction of eternity, the opposite happened. Byleth turned around to join her side, literal and figurative, and Edelgard felt hope blossom in her chest for the first time in years. Not just hope that her plan to uproot the theocracy and the feudal state it acted as the foundations for. But also that there might be a chance of happiness or at least contentment on a personal level for herself. That the woman she loved might love her back, or at least the one friend who would see her as a peer and even a student rather than their superior would stay in her life. It was a sense of relief more pervasive than the sparing of her life, it was a shadow of a promise of absolution. The knowledge that even knowing that she had been allied to those Byleth had fought against and who had committed atrocities and killed her father, Byleth understood who she was and why she had acted thusly enough to forgive her. That her ideals and her horror at what Seiros had done were shared and she might not stand alone in this conflict. 

That hope had nearly overflowed into jubilation a few days after they made their escape from the livid Saint together, the one who had lied to and manipulated their society for centuries, slaughtering anyone who opposed her, ignoring pleas for mercy (for she had none) before their very eyes, prizing stagnant "stability" over any change, any freedom. They had spent days preparing their assault on Garreg Mach, time that allowed their opposition to prepare, true, but not enough to get reinforcements whereas the Imperial Army's forerunners had been ready to approach for weeks. The time most importantly was there to allow anyone who wished to to escape, for citizens to hide safely in the shadows of the monastery or in its dark underbelly, the Abyss, and for their fellow students to flee unscathed to their comfortable homes. Some would oppose her, for sure, and she worried about what the wily Claude, who she knew for a fact had a foreign army to hand and as many secrets about his past as she did, and the honorable, inflexible Prince Dimitri would do. It was a shame - she felt a connection to both especially the Prince, though less so than to Byleth, but didn't know why that might be except that Dimitri had hinted that there was a shared past in her shattered childhood memories, covered by the scars of her adolescent torment. She liked both, in their way, after spending time together this year and working closely together helping the Ashen Wolves in their plight months ago, and they would be the only people outside of her teacher that could relate to her as an equal in this stupid inherited heirarchy they were all beholden to but also in the chains of their duty and position of responsibility. They would be a problem now, but Edelgard was under no illusions that her actions would lead to innocent deaths and would do all she could to minimise that. 

Byleth's popularity and relationship with the students of other houses had won a great number of them over to her side, to her great surprise, and though many were conflicted she felt a flood of gratitude well up in her when they chose to join her camp rather than escape this inevitable battle. And with this and the vast improvement in combat skills she had wrung out of the Black Eagle House, alongside her direct leadership, strategising and formidable personal presence on the battlefield, she had doubtlessly been the difference between death and victory. Edelgard had had her own emotions in a fast, steel grip during the battle, but inside her excitement had built and built as her forces came closer and closer to their goal. To slay the tyrant at the heart of Fodlan's injustices along with taking the symbolic and strategic keystone of Garreg Mach and cutting the hostilities she knew had the potential to ravage the continent as short as possible. When her loyal officers had driven The Immaculate One's captains off the field of battle, from poor, misled Flayn to her father, the proud Saint Cichol and right up to that zealous bitch Catherine, she had thought they might do this without a drawn out war. When she had burst through the gates side by side with sensei Byleth, close enough to take one another's hands, and they had stared down Seiros before squaring off together against her, she had thought they would do it. When they had sent her sprawling and wounded, seemingly finished, she was sure they had done it. Two children of trauma, linked by loss and sharing a Crest it shouldn't have been possible for even one to have, sisters in more ways than one but thankfully not by blood, they had fought together like two parts of one whole, a single soul and single purpose.

But then one moment passed and everything changed in a terrifying burst of unearthly fire. The monastery, the heart of Fodlan that had held its walls for a millennia whilst Seiros ruled from there with an iron fist treating humanity as something between a pet and a child she was willing to abuse, was now shattered, rubble strewn everywhere, as splintered as the continent itself had become, ominous and undefendable. And her mentor, who had come this close to winning the day and ending the repressive regime of history, the woman she loved and Edelgard's dream of a life after all the fighting, vanished protecting her, for certain now either buried and broken under the debris or burnt up in those hellish flames. After 5 days, even Edelgard had to admit the obvious truth. Byleth was dead. Seiros had escaped to fight another day and Fodlan's war was only just beginning. 

She felt a twinge of pain in her dead heart. 

_Is this fate punishing me for my hubris? For my belief that one who has endorsed as many crimes as I deserves to even dream of peace and happiness?_

Edelgard didn't believe in any gods, not after what had happened to her and to her country in the name of those who acted like them, not knowing the depth of the sham that the Church of Seiros had written. And she hadn't believed in any divine sense of justice, but if it did exist then she was sure it was just that she be punished. She had done all she had done in the name of liberty and change, genuinely to help the people of the future have a better one, the present be unblinded and unshackled, and the past be avenged. She knew she was complicit in the sins of Those Who Slither In The Dark, even where she had not approved of their actions or resisted them herself. She knew she had deaths on her hands, and would have countless more, each weighing on a conscience she couldn't afford to give free rein. She knew that even if she succeeded history would not, and shouldn't be, kind to her, that she was sacrificing her soul and her reputation and the length of her shortened, cursed life in the hope of breaking the system so that a better kinder one with a better kinder ruler could be in place. She was just a tool, but not the Agarthans'. She was the sword of justice, the axe of progress, and weapons don't get happy endings. 

The emptiness in her heart, the numbness her body and mind have imposed whilst she had done the work she needed to, the self-preserving insensitivity and the straining for the same protective memory loss that she had from her childhood, it all shattered and left her wound open to the world, going from feeling nothing to everything in an instant.

She wept. Hot tears of grief for a friend, a mentor, a loved one. For her hope and her chance of humanity and redemption. She cried and sobbed until her throat was raw, drowning in scalding, caustic love and grief and all the silly things that made us human. She cried until she had no tears left.

Then she got up, cleaned her face so nobody would ever know, and marched downstairs to get to work.

An Emperor represented their people and had to be strong enough to keep going when they needed a moment to recover. She couldn't afford to wail and lament the dead.

A general had to grieve the sacrifice of her men in silence and keep going to finish the job at hand. They had a war to win and their enemy, one who would burn the world to get their way and barely saw human deaths with pity nevermind sorrow, wouldn't cease fire to let them see off their dead with reverence. 

A monster didn't deserve love or a happy ending.

A weapon didn't get to feel sorry for itself. A tool didn't get to wish for a different life. People had died for Edelgard to get this chance to pay so much, of her own and of others', to make things better for a future generation. Many innocent. Byleth had been willing, a soldier, at least. She had to make sure those lives, the life of her love, didn't go to waste.

Edelgard donned her armour and rallied her troops. They couldn't afford to fail, and she couldn't afford to let another follower down.

The war continued. The flames of strife kept burning, and so did their Emperor. 

_Weapon, monster, tool. Whatever I am, I am coming for you, Saint self-made into a goddess. You let me live another day at the expense of my heart and now I am going to kill my so-called-god._


	2. A rose, red, wilted

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nearly 4 years later, Edelgard ponders on a promise.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> SORRY THIS IS A LONG ONE!

"Let's be bold. Let's all vow to each other now that in five years today we will all return here together no matter what."

Immediately after stating it, Edelgard had no idea what she was thinking, five years ago as she plotted the final stages of a move that she knew would either result in one of three options: Rhea's execution and the uproot of the status quo; her own demise; or, as had now come to pass, war that would almost certainly divide them. Promises about reunions and reminiscing were naive and completely contrary to the aims she had had, against her usual character, but she'd not been herself, the sheer, rare pleasure of just having fun with the closest thing she had to friends making her reckless and wistful for something different for once. Emotions proving how dangerous, how duplicitous they could be.  _ No, inevitably are _ . She'd not make those same mistakes again, she wanted to be able to, but she wasn't strong enough to take another hit to her brittle heart, couldn't afford to put it ahead of her nation and her mission. 

Still, she was weak, and she couldn't help but to cast her memory back and ask what might have been. Maybe it was the inability to remember any presumed happy memories from her foggy, fractured childhood that drove her to do it? Or the pain, the ghost of Byleth's face that had been added to her daily nightmares, that beautiful face turning from brilliant determination to sheer terror for one instant before the world went up in a blaze of hellfire. She relived that night, not the horrific one she saw every night since in her attempts at sleep, but the one that had contained so much magic and acted as the slender boundary before so much went wrong, with bittersweetness. Even regretting her plaintive suggestion, the feast with her housemates had been a necessary, healing distraction from all the betrayal and hard choices she had been making behind the scenes and the hard work and blood and death their training and their (frankly abhorrent) misuse by Rhea's church (sending students to fight her battles like full knights) had involved. Good memories shone through. Being made, to her own amazement, to laugh by Dorothea's explosive humour and her teasing flirting of the boys (and, she didn't fail to notice, Byleth, a blushing Petra and Edelgard herself). Petra asking about feasting customs and her little face lighting up as she learnt. The posing between Hubert and Ferdinand, a weird social chess of two rivals who hadn't realised how much they liked each other yet. Bernie being dragged onto the dance floor, and watching the tension slowly seep out of her body, being brought further and further out of her shell. Lindhart napping in the corner whilst Lysithea drew on his face. And then, a perfect hour where she twirled in Byleth's arms, Edelgard knowing they might be enemies soon, but savoring the moment, the deftness of her hands and the fleetness of her feet as they twisted and pulled each other close, her scent thick on Edie's nose and begging her to finally declare those feelings that terrified her. To kiss her. 

She hadn't, but they had spent a quiet few minutes in each other's company outside, sharing a few words but not needing more, Edelgard just relishing her silent presence and the balm it was to her tortured, feverish soul. She let herself feel for once in an aeon, and drowned in the exquisite, excruciating, unbearable pleasure-pain (for they were twins, for all their superficial differences, or destined lovers, as close in source and bound together as Edelgard and Byleth were). Then she had hidden and watched Rhea walk into that tower, the beginning of the end.

That made her mindful of Byleth's absence (from everywhere but Edie's memories and her heart), the painful, gaping gouge her removal had left in her life, rending her soul with untouchable cold fire, rendering her as helpless and bereft as she'd ever felt, even after whatever her mind had hacked away from her childhood, even the sight of her weakened father taunted and abused by those who were sworn to protect and serve him, the screams of her siblings as they suffered as she had and the cold hands and still faces she had been privy to before they were dumped, gracelessly and gravelessly (nevermind the tomb that was supposedly reserved for their venerated blood) into the night. Even her own screams as they did the same to her, hurting her in every way possible, cutting short her life and tying strings and chains to her, half puppet half captive, as they coerced her into atrocities and called it alliance. How smug they had been, how triumphant, when she had survived when her kin could not, some strength within saving her, whether it had been innate to her spirit or body, or tempered by her cruel existence or crueller fate or cruellest of all to merciless luck. How pleased with their tame "beast", seen by them as less than human, but useful, surely tied to them in vengeance and then by the deeds she grudgingly had undertaken, seeing the long game. They, feeling untouchable, celebrating the finest weapon they could forge, complacent to her hate and her patience and her will to continue fixing the world long after she would be done with the tyrant Seiros. Both sides in this ancient war were irredeemable, had controlled and chained and culled humanity, both saw it as lesser, as animal, base, and she would suffer neither side to live past her. She had suffered enough. 

She couldn't suffer the death of Byleth again though, even in her mind. It alone could break her. 

She would thank the gods for this war, this constant work to distract her, if only she held them worthy of her gratitude. Her gods were lies or liars, and the source of all this. True, she was far from blameless, and would die at the end of her task with no hope of future or salvation, but if she made this world a godless one first, then she would give the future a chance. 

Despite the harsh irony of the one person Edelgard had truly been speaking to that night five years back being the only loss from their companionship, there were things to celebrate. The rest of them all lived, and their numbers had swelled due to Byleth's influence. Another bitter irony. Some had been sealed to the cause by her very death, disgusted at what the Archbishop had done rather than give up the monastery, inspired by her example and the green hair and eyes that linked her to Seiros and the Goddess. If anyone was a true avatar of a god worth worshiping, it had been her. 

Such thoughts had swayed the devout Annette, for example, to side with the Empire, expressing that her faith was in the Goddess, not the Church that had proven corrupt and duplicitous. That was a sentiment Edelgard could get behind, a firm and laudable declaration of faith beyond dogma, and an evolution of opinion and rationalisation that Edelgard could respect. Her recruitment had been cemented by that of sweet Mercedes, her best friend, once of Adrestian nobility (House Martritz specifically before that House was abolished, then tragically Bartels), who shared similar views on Seiros’ betrayal of everything they held sacred, and had another tie to Edelgard’s cause that nobody else knew about yet. The Emperor’s own weapon, the means by which she had supported Agarthan schemes and committed the acts that shamed her the most, or would do if she allowed herself the privilege of shame, the infamous Death Knight himself was Emile, Mercedes’ beloved step-brother, and she was desperate for his redemption. 

_ If only redemption were so easy for the likes of us… _

  
  


She knew even if she succeeded and had a slim chance of history seeing her as a revolutionary, a progressive and not a tyrant, then many would not view her kindly. Certainly, especially if they learnt about her past secrets, people would assume she had acted from a wish for vengeance against the Church (if they were kind enough not to put everything down to lust for power, as if power were anything but a curse, a heavy mountain you didn’t get to place down until you died, crushing you all the while). Maybe it was a conceit of hers, but she truly felt that to be false. She was motivated, she liked to think, by slightly loftier aspirations - change, freedom, justice, a chance at equality at some time in the future. She might despise what Seiros and her repressive Church had done, and she distrusted and blamed her for that to some degree, but she understood some of her self-justification, her suffering. She didn’t hate her, and the impact of the broken world she had made on Edelgard’s own personal torment was indirect. She needed to overthrow her to undo what she had done, but it was not personal.

When she came for Thales, that would be for the good of her people, her species as well, but that would be personal. Him, she loathed with all her being, for the things he had done to innocent people, to the people she loved, for the pain and the experimentation she had endured under his minions, treated like an insect to vivisect. For ruining her father, for ruining Dimitri, even as that one stood sadly as her implacable enemy now. For making her complicit in his crimes and leading her to throw away her humanity and her integrity by making himself the only path there was and threatening what remained of her family and her subjects if she tried to fight back. For killing her uncle, a man she remembered vaguely as brave and good and kind, and stealing his face and using it to make him a monster, killing him a second time via his name. 

Yes, if she got to put an axe in Thales’ condescending face herself then she would be able to take at least that small pleasure from this brutal course. Sadly, that would have to wait until the easier foe to defeat was gone. 

_ Easier but demonstrably not easy.  _

Their ranks had swelled, in terms of sheer numbers and useful people, and many children of nobles, from young Felix Fraldarius, sword master who had been vital on the field and driven away from the Kingdom by his concern at the feudalism that bound it, by the uncontrollable anger of his old friend, the new King, and the worrying callousness and zealotry of his own father, to adopted Marianne of the Alliance, who proclaimed her admiration of Edelgard’s resolve and - according to information gleaned somehow by Hubert - to have her own demons and reasons to oppose the Crest system. A very interesting Crest she had indeed. However, they unfortunately did not come with the support of their territories and their Houses, giving Edelgard useful minds and warriors but not the armies she really needed, leaving her reliant on her own Imperial Forces, though she had her own issues there. Some common folk had joined her cause and were enthusiastic and courageous but needed training that the Adrestian officers had had to rush and spread thin. They had been helped by the old teachers, Manuela and Hanneman, once of the Monastery’s own Academy, who had defected to the Empire inspired by their fellow Professor and enraged by her death, but Edelgard had only recently managed to recapture and renovate the ruined monastery and ease of training had been very restricted until recently. 

She’d also been joined by the knight commander Alois, joining out of respect for Jeraldt as well as his daughter, as had Jeraldt’s tenacious, gamy mercenary prodigy Leonie. That amazed Edie, that they could put aside her own involvement in the man’s death, though she had been honest when she had sworn that she hadn’t known that would happen and that she would have personally killed Kronye to prevent it. Helping defeat her had been one of the small pleasures Edelgard had managed to receive in the last trying half-decade. Trickster Yuri who led the underworld of Abyss beneath the Monastery had been a useful asset, though one that Edelgard trusted less than most. He had once been Seiros’ agent, though for good reason at that time, and would do what seemed best for those under his care. Fortunately, Edelgard intended to make it clear that this would always be to work with her. He had brought three interesting resources with him: firstly Constance von Nuvelle, last survivor and heir of a defunct House, incredible mage who sought to resurrect it, a task that Edelgard was uniquely able and willing to facilitate; Hapi, commonborn, cursed to summon monsters with a sigh, taken in by the Knights of Seiros then abandoned into darkness by Seiros herself - she hated the Church and fought against it; and Balthus, disgraced heir of Clan Albrecht in the Alliance, in debt and in hiding and needing a way to rise again and live free, another thing that Edelgard could guarantee. Lindhart and Byleth had drafted Lysithea of Ordelia, now only 20 years old but someone whose secret reason for joining them Edelgard could guess at a glance. She had every reason to hate those who led the Empire after she and her House were punished for aiding rebelling Adrestian House Hrym, but those people were the same people that had hurt Edelgard herself and turned her father into a figurehead. The people she had deposed. And Lysithea’s violet eyes and ghostly hair made her a sister of sorts to Edie, because she knew from awful personal experience what she must have been through to receive them. How she must hate both the Crests Edelgard suspected she held.

_ Do not worry, sister, they will pay soon as well.  _

Sylvain Gautier had joined the Black Eagles, Edelgard suspected, due to his interest in the gorgeous good looks of their new professor. Well, she couldn’t criticise him too much for that, given her own attraction and the way it had shaped her choices, the risks it had caused her to take. But she knew he had stayed with them, despite internal conflict and the fear of facing his old friend and his own father in this war, out of principle, at the way his brother had been scapegoated and executed by the Church and the way the ruling of the Church and its unfair obsession with Crests had led to his actions. The final key addition was Shamir, once loyal to Seiros but somehow that had been transferred across to Byleth. These were significant allies, but the Empire was left trying to implement the reform that Edelgard had to start introducing now, to give it a chance to outlive her, as well as fighting insurrection from nobles who wanted to keep the status quo and had been instrumental in declawing and controlling the old Emperor (though the major antagonists were either under arrest or had been disposed off by House Vectra’s shadowy means, they still had supporters). That was a bad situation to be fighting a war on two sides. Technically the Alliance as a whole was neutral, Claude refusing to take any action (waiting for his own move, surely, Edelgard knew he had connections to Almyra and aspirations to unite Fodlan himself) and each House able to choose for itself but those that shared a border with her were using this opportunity to oppose the Empire and her potential support in the Alliance were paralysed by the stance of damned House Riegan. And Claude’s cultivated neutrality aside, the other members of his House made their opposition to the Empire clear. There was no open battle on that front, just tension and skirmishes, but overcommitment to their more active enemy would leave that border weak and the Empire open to Claude’s own move and ambitions. She couldn’t move troops away from The Alliance, and she couldn’t exert more force there to take them out of the fight and focus on the Kingdom because Dimitri  **was** being far more aggressive, attacking that border regularly, bolstered by the full force of the Church. He seemed to utterly hate Edelgard now, though she had no idea why, the death of his father changing him from a troubled, angry but honourable young man to one possessed by enmity. 

With those two enemies plus the ones within, Seiros in hiding but with her own loyal forces, and threats from outside Fodlan itself, The Empire’s usually ample resources were in a tentative balance, any significant shift in forces potentially leaving a disastrous opening elsewhere. 

Even with that, even with Count Bergliez and his generals having to do most of the day to day management of the war, with Edelgard distracted by creating her central base here in Garreg Mach, with ruling and reshaping and administrating the duties of her council (never again would she let the ruler of this nation be restricted to a figure head and kept out of affairs of state), even with the ordinary people around them split and confused by the war between their faith and their government, things might be difference if all her supposed allies did their part. Those Who Slither In The Dark, the Agarthans she had been in an unwilling and self-denigrating partnership with, now stood only as a threat not a tool. Their agents made no useful actions to attack enemy leaders. Their mages were involved in no battles or raids, took on no risks whatsoever whilst letting Edelgard’s people put their lives on the line, One of them acted as one of the highest ranking nobles in Faerghus, Lady Cornelia, with as much power as Lord Fraldarius and almost as much as Dimitri, and offered nothing. The demon wearing the face of her own Uncle sauntered about consolidating his power and made no moves to aid his alleged niece and liege. Their arrogance and their indolence and their cowardice meant that Edelgard would lose more of the civilians and soldiers she was responsible for than required whilst losing none of their own, the demon’s deal she had made with them a farce, and though she was certain she would eventually win this war she knew they would turn on her in an instant, fresh from their uselessness, and seize the world she had gathered up for themselves. 

She needed a way out. Every day they wasted doing almost nothing, not losing any ground she had won with her decisive move at the start of this (open) war more than four years ago but gaining precious little, risked putting Fodlan into an even worse place than it had been when Seiros ruled. That was an eventuality that must never be allowed to come into place. But her armies were tied up, even her Imperial Guard required to defend her base of operations here, and she trusted Ladislava to do that. Her private army led by Randolph was needed to hold the area around it, and the House Hresvelg levies were defending the palace, the capital and her father. All she had to use were her closest companions, the Black Eagles and those who had joined them. And herself. It was a huge risk, but they were all that were spare and could act as they once had as an elite strike force to attack specific targets. 

She knew that any missions she personally left on put her at risk, and that the fight relied on her as its leader and lynchpin, but there was no other way, and for all Hubert’s misgivings she knew that she was hardly safer stuck in a throne room that every enemy knew where to find and send assassins or dark spells. She was in danger wherever she was, that was part of who and what she was. At least in battle she would feel like they could achieve her goals, that she was contributing and that she could defend herself and see where the danger was coming from. At least she would be surrounded by the people she trusted most of all to protect her back.

The original Black Eagles were all here. None had left her. Hubert would die first, had been with her from the beginning, putting all of this into action. Ferdinand had surpassed her expectations and stayed calm in the face of his treasonous father’s arrest and fall from power and stepped seamlessly into his place, a genuine believer in the duty of nobility to defend those they ruled. He would fit into Edie’s new system well and has proven himself a dozen times over. Petra had come to them a hostage, a way of keeping Brigid under control, but now seemed it her mission to prove her nation’s fidelity and to win it Adrestian gratitude. She and Dorothea, who were now… intimately close, they were as close a thing to friends as Edie had now, and would not betray her. Dorothea would always fight by her love’s side and had every reason to oppose the Crest system and everything to gain from Imperial Victory. Caspar, his very family key to the Empire’s military, was as trustworthy and steadfast as Hubert in his own way. Lindhart seemed fascinated by this all, seeing it as writing history and shaping science, but he was dedicated on a personal level as well, and Bernadetta, little Bernie, had grown out of the shadow of her abusive (now imprisoned) father to become one of Edelgard’s most trusted and vital advocates. 

Between them they had achieved great things as students, but that had been under the professor’s leadership, and for all she had learnt, for all her genuine and feigned confidence, Edelgard felt half the tactician and leader that her mentor had been. More than that, she missed her companionship. None of her classmates, as close as some were, could see her as a friend on the same level as them. To all of them she was their commanding officer and their Emperor and even Hubert couldn’t feel free to give an honest critique of her plans. Not even Dorothea could treat her like the young woman she sometimes felt like and give her a comforting hug or a quiet moment when she could just not be Emperor for an hour. It all led her feeling so uncertain of herself, so lost and her motivation drifting more and more every day. 

Really though the biggest issue, the one that stopped her from charging in like she knew she at some point needed to, was that since her love had been slain exactly where she now stood, where she had heard the final words that she couldn’t be found, she had all her hope. 

_ To beat the Kingdom, the Alliance, the Church, and still be able to fight the real enemy… I need a miracle.  _

Edelgard didn’t believe in miracles, not since she had realised that god was out to hurt them all and not help them. But, somehow, she got one anyway.

She hadn’t heard any steps, but someone had snuck up on her because out of the silence came a voice. One that sent tremors through her entire universe. Sent waves of confused, churning emotions, ones she couldn’t yet distinguish through the icy shock that ran over the top of it, like the winter river surface numbing the skin to the fighting currents battering you beneath it. The voice of a ghost, and of hope. Deep, for a woman, and rich, warming her after the cold like heated mead. 

“Sorry I’m late. And that I’ve been gone so long. But I’m here now. I made a promise to you all, and I keep my promises.”

Slowly, unable to believe it, she turned. To see the face that she tried to draw every day, that painted her dreams, both good and bad. 

To see the dead. Her heart and soul. 

  
  


“Now, get up. We have a celebration to make, friends to talk to and a war to win.”

  
  


Byleth.


	3. A single twinkling star breaking out in the indigo infinity of night

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Edelgard grapples with her feelings as she takes a hiatus from the war

There were too many feelings to process most of them individually, Edelgard existing in an anti-zen state, some sort of reverse trance of pure awareness and alertness and mixed raw emotion. Fleetingly she was aware of relief, admiration, amazement, disbelief, suppressed fear and sorrow, but no one of them could win out. Eventually two feelings formed distinct streams. One was undiluted love - she had accepted, when she accepted that Byleth was gone, that she was hopelessly, helplessly in love with her and it seemed that was now intrinsic to Byleth’s very existence in Edelgard’s mind. The other was anger.

_ How dare she abandon me for four years? Leave me torn and, and… feeling! Feelings I’ve tried so hard to shut out, weaknesses I can’t afford. How could she let me think she was dead?! _

She was about to put that into words, walking towards her unsure whether she would throw her arms around Byleth or at her face, slap her cheek or kiss it, struggling between revealing her relief and her upset, and that obviously showed on her face because the other woman spoke first.

“I’m sorry I left you, Edelgard. I’ve been dead.”

That stopped Edelgard in her tracks.  _ Is she joking? _ She had learnt that her teacher did joke from time to time, and it was usually that kind of dry humour with a deadpan expression, but there was generally more of a sign of levity on that stoic, perfect carving than she saw now. She took a good look, noting that her teacher’s eyes were still that luminous shade of green, matching her jade locks, and they had a glint of regret in them but no gaiety. Her face was as beautiful, as angelic as it had been before, seemingly not aged a day, and as serious as ever but she knew Byleth well enough now to see that she was pleased to see her. Her chiselled cheeks were smudged with dirt and that radiant hair was bedraggled. Certainly it hadn’t been a comfortable few years.

She was telling the truth, or something similar. _ A coma, perhaps? Hubert had cast a spell that should pick up any beating heart in the monastery. Either hers became so slow it couldn't recognise it or she fell further afield than we had thought possible. _

She certainly looked like she could have come straight from the battle in which she'd fallen. Her cloak tattered and charred, her breastplate filthy and disfigured, she was superficially a wreck. Somehow though, she seemed energised, and her skin may have been dirty but was unblemished, not one burn or bruise to match her battered armour.  _ Immaculate _ .  _ Incredible. _

Edelgard had mastered herself now, the primary emotion within her, aside from the love, was happiness and she had it along with everything else locked back up inside where it belonged. Expression of fear and affection could both be exploited, and lingering on either could lead to misjudgment. Composure had always been her ally, icy cool mind to think things through without emotional fog, unshaking hands to act without wavering and calm affect to reassure others that she was as decisive and slip-free as the weapon she used. The weapon she was. Justice's axe, coming to execute the false prophets and the parasites on society. 

Still, for the first time in 4 years she was acutely aware of her own heartbeat, barely holding steady, her body all too absorbed by what she wouldn't let her mind focus on. 

Byleth might well have been dead for all she knew of what had happened in the last four years, asking question after question that most children could answer about the three Nations of Fodlan, political events. About how the war that had just sprouted above the surface when she fell had progressed in her absence. 

_ Not a lot, to be honest _ . That was a wry, sore thought. 

As they walked through the halls, Edie tried to bring her up to speed, knowing Hubert could probably fill in any salient details later, explaining the little advancement they had made, the changes she had formulated politically and socially and the deadlock they were in tactically, the enemies of different natures on each flank and in the very belly, and even alluded to the worse enemy to come, buried like a poison dart right next to the heart of the Empire. Her "uncle". Byleth's fine features had tightened at that, hurting Edelgard a little as she explained why they couldn't act against Arundel for now. Clearly her teacher was sharp and had put together his connection with the scum that had killed her father, though she couldn't see how Byleth would know that he was Thales himself. She would tell her, though, as soon as they got other things out of the way. 

Talking about the renovation of Garreg Mach and those that had joined them reminded Edelgard of the happier aspect of what today signified. A bittersweet promise now stripped of much of its acridity, now their crew was whole again. She increased their pace, now with a purpose more wholesome than planning their next move. That was urgent and she needed the assurance and brilliance that her sensei would bring to it, to make sure her idea was sound in the eyes of the one person to whom she could always turn to for advice and see as a teacher, a superior in some regards. She needed new eyes and voices on the details too, and she now knew she was ready to act soon, this was the sign and the impetus she had needed, paralysed by doubt and knowledge of risk and skewered to the past. Right now, though, her people needed a morale boost, and the return of their beloved professor was the best one that date could ever have provided. 

Hells. If she were truly honest with herself, and acknowledged and examined that bundle of tension and feeling that she had returned to its cell in her cold heart, she needed the morale boost and the distraction from the fighting and the decision making right now. She shouldn't - an Emperor couldn't afford to need a break, a weapon couldn't afford to engage in play - but she knew that didn't make it any less true. 

Proper or not, it was worth it when she saw the small smile on her sensei's face as she half-dragged her into the ballroom, frankly an effort given the extra height she had on Edie. Much like herself, Byleth did smile but it was rare enough to mark a date by, and the rarity as well as the subtlety made it a marvelous sight, a kingfisher perfectly and gracefully breaking the reserve of her face's tranquil pool. Or a single twinkling star breaking out in the indigo infinity of night. 

Less understated was the response from the other occupants of the hall, one by one as they realised, prompted by the wave of rustling whispers, who had entered the room. Vigilant Hubert, sat at a table sipping wine with Ferdinand (those two had become friends now, whatever they might say, and if Edelgard knew her most trusted vassal well at all she would bet that there were deeper feelings than that there. Certainly both gave increasingly lingering touches when they were helping each other up or playing chess) noticed first, raised his eyebrows and twitched his lips in an expression that from anyone else would be a surprised shout of glee. Ferdinand turned around and his eyes popped as wide as the saucers he loved to described in agonising detail whenever they shared tea. 

Dorothea was dancing elegantly with Petra, the Brigid princess' face rosy already and hand stuck to Dorothea's hip with a firmness that made Edie think at last they'd both wake in the same bed, their unspoken feelings finally bursting out into bubbles of passion and their obvious connection finally acknowledged and free from tension. She hoped it would happen tonight, the anniversary of the evening they had started to show the signs of interest in each other that even Dorothea had seemed uncharacteristically slow to accelerate. They were a beautiful couple, both together in their clear tenderness and in separate parts - Edelgard could appreciate that, both the sort that would have attracted her interest perhaps if she hadn't given it eternally to another, that she might have bedded herself, before she had given up finding satisfaction in neither men nor women as the consorts her position demanded, if they hadn't been as close as family to her. Reportedly, Petra was still struggling to accept that she desired a woman's touch, which was presumably why Dorothea had been so patient, but it had been clear to everyone, even poor blind Mercedes, that they wanted each other for years. Maybe the joy of Byleth's return would be the catalyst for this dance leading into the dance of the blushing moon, as it was called.

Right now though, the lovebirds were distacted, Dorothea spotting their old tutor and giving a loud gasp, which immediately drew the attention of Caspar and Annette who were dancing nearby, another match that had been building a while. Soon the entire room was surrounding the shocked Byleth as Edelgard suppressed a rare smirk, the former obviously taken back by the strength of the reaction. 

Some admonished her, some (Bernadetta mainly) cried for joy, but every face lit up to see hers. 

On this night of all nights… it's perfection.

The giddy ex-students all wanted their say, all wanted their moment of greeting with a hero they had thought was lost to them forever. Even stone-faced Felix.

One particular voice, notoriously powerful, cut through Edelgard's amused internal dialogue.

"We all missed you professor! Especially Edie!" 

_ Oh no, that is Dorothea. That combination of that personality and this topic could get very embarrassing very fast. _

"You should have seen her for weeks after you vanished. So forlorn, like her very heart had been shattered."

Edelgard felt her cheeks burn, and wished the ground would swallow  **her** up for four years just like the shame was swallowing her up now.  _ So much for command of my emotions.  _ "That's enough of that, Thea." 

Grown up little Lysithea, no longer the insecure girl with everything to prove but a force of will (and hurricane of magical power, Hubert said he'd never seen another mage with such raw strength, talent and determination to use both, and Edelgard had never seen one person unleash more damage in one go on the field) to be reckoned with, turned from grasping Byleth's hand to give the same scowl she always gave when someone used that name. She hated sharing even part of a name with someone. Edie ignored her. 

"I'm sure the Professor wants to go clean and change and then join us to catch up. Let's not delay her with silly stories about the past."

She got an appraising look from her teacher for that, one that sent more blood to her face and between her legs (an odd sensation she had barely felt even when she last shared her sheets with two pretty girls, two years ago, trying to reignite an interest in anything she might enjoy but finding herself utterly dissociated and tired). But the resurrected woman took the hint and wandered off, leaving Edelgard a brief chance to regroup and collect her thoughts. 

_ What if she knows I want her? Would that be good, give her a chance to reciprocate and think about how she feels? Or more likely she doesn't like women at all and now thinks I'm an even bigger fool. Let's start this off by making sure we are still friends, I need her most of all as a friend and a guide.  _

By the time Byleth returned, the room still agitated with talk about where she had been, Edie was cool steel again, shutting out the warmth that rose inside her at the sight of her love now bathed and adorned in the dress she'd worn exactly five years ago, one that accentuated her soft curves and hard edges perfectly. Edelgard was focus. She was resolve. This was… difficult. Who was she trying to convince?

Her illusion of restraint was slowly worn down over a night that they had all needed, one that for all the anxious powerlessness to her growing feelings left Edelgard refreshed, exhilarated and… happy? Did she remember what true happiness, rather than fleeting joy,spikes of triumph and waves of undulating elation, but for her entire life they had been on a background of sorrow and stress, always creeping as soon as her pleasant stimulus ceased or she took a moment to reflect on anything. She had assumed that was her lot in life, her personality or her duty to feel that way, but watching her friends dance and drink and make merry, it felt her feeling warm inside. Touching Byleth, sharing her skin and her words, that left her feeling warm  **and** hot. And then they danced once more, Edelgard feeling completely safe in her hands and her arms, those strong muscles and warriors poise every bit as attractive as her feminine shape and soft voice. She let Byleth lead, giving up her charge for the first time in years to the only person she had willingly given it to before, the one she'd trust with her life and her decisions.  _ This is funny _ . She could hear her own voice through this moment in time, a decoration on this tapestry of serenity.  _ I've struggled to feel safe by ensuring I always held the power, that I'd never be or feel helpless like I did in that experiment chamber hearing my siblings weep and smelling my skin burn. The impotence when my father was stripped of power by those whom he trusted, the fear of fleeing for our lives, the distress of knowing we are all pieces moved by an immortal despot. It's driven so much of what I've done and what I've been. But now, I feel as helpless as ever in her arms, and I feel safer than I've ever felt before.  _

She pirouetted with her sensei as a pivot, the two working delicately as one, as in tune and in tandem as they were in any exercise or battle. It felt perfect, like they were meant to be, two sides of a coin.  _ Why fight this _ ? She could pretend to everyone else that she wasn't infatuated, propriety demanded it in fact - who would follow a leader who doted so openly and was so obviously led by her heart? Ruling meant to be led purely by your brain. But pretending to herself, trying not to get swept away in her devotion, that was a deception she had promised once she would not stoop to, and a pointless battle. She had been honest with who she was, with every sin she had committed, every life her actions had snuffed out whether she wanted it to or not, the price she was asking others to pay for decisions she had taken the burden and the power of making. She had to be honest now, that this girl was more important to her than anyone else, as important as her mission and she was just glad that they no longer clashed. She couldn't stay cold and in control around her, her belly writhing and her chest burning, and she couldn't bear not to be around her, so she'd have to live with that and let her mind do what it did best and try to make decisions despite every distraction but she couldn't pretend to keep the distractions locked up anymore. 

If Byleth kissed her now, she would cede, melting into it. But, however she felt about her, and despite the unique power dynamic they shared from months of Edelgard following her commands and her lead, Edelgard was the Emperor and there's no way that she could know whether any move initiated by herself would be accepted and returned through love and desire, or duty and loyalty. She couldn't make the first move, she wouldn't, it would inherently strip their relationship of any freedom, define it purely on her terms and one way or another it would kill it. But she wanted to kiss Byleth so badly, to taste her and to see if her plump lips were as soft as they looked. Her aroma, both the natural scent of her skin and the light fragrance she had dressed it with, it filled Edie's nostrils and was almost irresistible.  _ One move, one sign that you want this and I'm yours forever.  _

For a moment, as they dipped and the music stopped and they stood frozen in time, Edelgard was sure it would happen, certain that the look in Byleth's eyes was hunger and want. But then the mood passed, and slowly she let go, leaving Edelgard, arguably the most powerful person in the continent, confused and disappointed. 

_ Did I imagine that look? Am I projecting? If not, why didn't she act?  _

Knowing either way whether she had a chance or not, that closure would allow Edelgard to move on in some direction. But this feeling of uncertainty was worse than rejection.

_ Better than how I felt mere hours ago though, better than having her out of my life and presumed dead. I should be counting my blessings, focussing on what's important right now and give whatever this tie between us is time to develop. You're meant to be the epitome of patience, El.  _

Forcing herself to look away from her idol as she walked away, eyes torn from the slow swaying of her hips and the battle-forged assets that sat between them, she turned to regroup yet again. To enjoy the night and its escape from the shackles of her self. 

She closed her eyes and walked away. 


	4. Staunch aster, bold orchid, watered with wine

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Edelgard seeks advice on what to do next

The next few hours blurred, pleasantly so as Edelgard, with unobtrusive testing from her taster and Hubert, sipped at enough wine to become mellow, a rarity to the point of being unheard of. Lightened by the release of the tombstone of Byleth's death, she could enjoy the company of her friends, and yes they were all friends in that peculiar way her rank affected, for the first time in years. Maybe it was even the first time ever that she genuinely relaxed around them. 

She spoke to every one of them, reminded of how dear they all were in their own way, enjoying even the time with those she knew least well, who had started out in other Houses or the employ of the Church. She had interacted with them all for the past few years as they'd warred together, though most of them she had led and spoken with only sporadically - it was only this promised anniversary and the draw of Byleth that linked them all together, and the recent completion of refortifying the monastery, that had brought them all together at once. And even with those she knew better and had worked closely with in her reign and her campaign she had been guarded. "Guarded" summarised her up well, not just since the war but her entire life. She had had to be guarded to survive and then to plot her counterstrokes and remain undetected. Maybe with these people, she didn't need to be? After all, they were all willing to fight and die for her, and if it came to it, when it eventually came to it, she for them. What need did she really have for keeping them out of her walls, within reason?

She crushed Ferdinand, once her harshest critic and most determined rival but now her Prime Minister and friend bound by mutual respect, shared reverence of duty and a need to right the wrongs of their forefathers, in a board game, watched Balthus win a few hands of "Dark Lady" and listened to Marianne play the harp whilst Dorothea sang, not rushing straight back to business for once, letting this night be what it could be. After a while though, she needed air in the stifling room, the heat of bodies and the heat of bodies getting closer (some pairings she never would have guessed - phlegmatic Felix and shy Bernie were whispering hand in hand in a way that would set tongues wagging) making it harder to breathe. 

She surveyed the rebuilt Colossus around her and the gardens full of life that she had brought back into being. It gave her as much a sense of peace as she was likely to feel for some time. However, being away from the bustle of the party and alone inevitably gave her mind space to do what it did best and fixate on the future. It was a blessing and curse, and she had two real paths she could nudge it along: the first was Byleth and that one left her perplexed, plus she had promised herself to give that relationship time and freedom to evolve as it must; so it was back to work. The sociopolitical future was something she had mapped out countless times in her head - she knew exactly where she meant to steer it as well as how and why, and it was well underway and mostly held up by the other part, the one that was left to solve. The military. 

Fundamentally, holding her borders was fine and relatively easy to achieve with the forces she had, even if she kept some to quash insurrection from the Lords who had denigrated their country and she had acted against. Leading a whole campaign to hunt down either Claude, Dimitri or Seiros, for their ambition, direction and oversight were what kept their factions fighting, was a huge risk, would take too many troops. A direct strike on their strongholds was difficult - it would be hard to travel so deep into either nation without being spotted from leagues away and a small force would be too vulnerable to being intercepted and overwhelmed. So she needed to change the borders so that a more concentrated attack on such strongholds was within her grasp without overextending it, to keep her armies supported and fed and not cut off. 

Suddenly a noise startled her, and she span around to see Byleth's sea green hair almost glowing in the soft moonlight. 

"I saw you step out and I was worried about you, Edie. What are you thinking about?"

Well, if she's here I may as well use her. I wanted to do this at some point anyway. 

"I'm thinking about our next move, strategically speaking, but I could use your help, sensei."

Byleth gave that subtle smile of hers, such a tiny change geometrically but one that morphed her entire face, shifting from wise, stoic general to a girl just like herself, one who liked arranging flowers, and cooking, and having tea and singing in the cathedral. Both faces seemed designed to crack any resolve Edie had, beautiful no matter what they were doing. But right now, she needed Byleth's mind. She switched her attention from those shining eyes, the blue-tinged green colour they said represented the heavens, the soul and life and death, and onto the words she had asked for.

"You don't have to call me sensei, Edie, I've not been your teacher these past years, and I'm not sure you need one"

_ I do. We all do, we are all constantly learning and being tested and failing.  _

"You will always be my teacher, in some part, even if you know longer formally tutor me I can learn from you, and your teaching has helped form who I am."

_ The good parts of who I am anyway, if they exist.  _

"Well, let's do this the way we would have used to in tactics class, shall we? We talk through what the problem is together, you give me your solution and I'll see if there are holes in it for us to fix together."

She quickly recapped her thoughts so far and expanded. "So, it makes most sense to take somewhere that allows us to change where our borders lie, without a deep march to do so, and somewhere that we can easily connect up to our territory whilst we secure it."

"And it needs to be the Alliance we target first, which you know. Explain why." 

From anyone else being asked questions she knew they knew she knew the answer to like that, about politics which was Edelgard's lifeblood, would have been patronising. But here it was part of the exercise, and being given a command from Byleth made Edelgard tingle in all sorts of places for reasons she couldn't quite discern. 

"We have allies in the Alliance, and truly neutral parties there, not like Claude who bides his time, and the Houses there have rivalries with each other, enough that if we take the Capital and formal leadership, we can use the Houses that support us against those who do not. Thus it will fall and align with us more easily against the Kingdom than the opposite, and will more easily be held by the people already there, freeing our armies to attack the Kingdom itself."

There was more than that - Claude could be reasoned with, and if spared might even be useful. Certainly he would run to fight another day or look for another route to his goals, whereas Dimitri and Seiros would never treat with her now, and would fight until they were dead and all those that obeyed them had died first as their shield. That would inherently take longer but more importantly it would cost more lives and Edelgard had started enough bloodshed already. It was paramount that they minimised the loss of life, the collateral to innocent civilians and to soldiers and nobles who were just doing what they were told in a stupid system that had ingrained obedience to their “betters” into them. The unfair, irrational feudal system that Seiros had created and propagated. 

The thought that Dimitri would either slay her or die as her enemy, despising her, made her sad for some reason, though she didn’t know why. She barely knew him, really, staying wary of each other back at the Academy except when they had helped liberate the Gray Wolves. He had hinted then, when they had time together, at something more between them, at some shared past. Not for the first time, she wished she had some inkling of what those blank childhood years away from her home had been full of, though as usual she was also grateful. Surely whatever memories she had repressed would break her? She had enough remembered pains that anything her mind felt she couldn’t bear terrified her.

"Good. And as you alluded earlier, the only way to take a target and extend your border without opening us up to a riposte would be for a small force to go it alone, take the key target so that the border armies just have to press through to hold it rather than waste precious time in which they are vulnerable taking it. So, it has to be a city or other fortification, as that's where a small force can be effective. And realistically, it has to be the Eagles that go."

Unsurprisingly the person who had taught her military strategy and tactical thinking had gotten there quickly, barely awake, or alive or recovered from whatever had befallen her, for a few hours. Still, she must have picked up the risk to Edelgard, who was also the key to her own Faction continuing, as well. 

"And are you going to tell me I should stay away, like Hubert? Lead the sortie yourself?"

Byleth slowly shook her head. "I would never patronise you like that, Edelgard. You know how important your life is to this cause, and know the risk, so you wouldn't be putting yourself in danger unless you thought it was necessary. I could lead, but symbolically it means much more if you do so, and in a situation where we have limited fighters and every person counts, we want the best warriors out there. And that means you." 

She flushed at that compliment, knowing her mentor meant it as blunt truth not flattery. Byleth never disassembled and never gave false praise. She had an honesty around her that Edelgard envied, something she admired and wished her own position and circumstances had allowed, though now her fight was in the open she hoped she could be more open in turn. 

"In addition to that, you are safer with the Eagles around you than you could be here or in Enbarr. The dangers will be more obvious and we more ready for them. I won't let anything hurt you, I swear it." 

How that promise made her feel hot inside! Edelgard had never felt safe with anyone except this guardian of hers, who had run in to protect her from Kostas, the bandit she had hired to test her peers, on the day they had met, mere strangers. Who had given her the tools she needed to change this world, far more than the Agarthans who called her their blade. Who had given her the security of her new family, the Eagles who would guard her back not just because she was their liege but because she was their friend. Who had watched out for her in battle after battle that their class had no place in being sent into. Who had defied god herself, not only staying her hand but clasping Edelgard's own in defiance, all for her sake. 

As long as Byleth was there, she would be safe. And that decided that. 

In dialogue, not the misused phrase for conversing but true dialogue between two thinkers bandying ideas between each other and making two separate minds into a unit working in stereo, they hammered out the rest of a plan. Only one place made sense to target - The Great Bridge of Myrddin. It crossed the natural border of the Airmid Riverstereo., led easily to the next towns to conquer and extended their territory but with a subtle shift to the boundary only. It led perfectly to a follow up strike on Gloucester, rich fields that would easily feed an army without starving the populace around it and a territory that had both close ties to the Empire and was led by the father of their old school fellow Lorenz, who was a rival of Claude’s, which Edelgard gambled would come easily to her side once the door was open - they had remained tentatively neutral but reputedly eager to supercede House Riegan and ally with the Empire. That would link up to House Ordelia, where Lysithea gave them leverage despite the acrimonious relationship Duke Aegir had fostered there. Edelgard’s arrest and condemnation of that man would help smooth those cracks over. Between Gloucester and Garreg Mach stood House Daphnel, steadfast supporters of Claude and Riegan but their leadership came from the Hero of Daphnel, Judith, who stood holding Myrrdin and thus would be in their hands, and to the North of Gloucester stood Derdriu, the Capital of the Leicester Alliance, which would effectively be right next to new Adrestian territory and vulnerable at last. There were roads from the Empire and Garreg Mach to the fort on the bridge and beyond into Leicester, meaning moving troops to secure the growing border and feeding them would be possible. And it was designed to be held from the North. 

Having Garreg Mach and the fleets of Wyvern riders that Adrestia was famous for, expendable enough as they led recon and scouting missions and patrolled the air, so long as Edelgard was quick about her attack, gave the Eagles an ironic option to assault Myrrdin. They would cut out the angle the Alliance expected and not go through the Empire itself. The skies could only be watched so closely, the expanse near infinite. They would go directly from the monastery in a straight line, hidden by mountains and then by sheer space, and travel by air with a Wyvern battalion escort to the North of the Bridge and strike before anyone knew they were nearby, with a second decoy dressed as Edelgard herself sitting in the Archbishop’s chair here in Garreg Mach, just as one sat in her throne in Enbarr (it was amazing how much people focussed on the moon-white hair and the distinctive crimson regalia. That was exactly why she wore it after all), to keep spies' eyes away from her hand. Once Edelgard's elite, the Sword of the Empire, had taken the Bridge, the Wyvern Knights would help hold it until the army could advance and set the new border and then they'd repeat the process until they had worked their way up to Gloucester. 

In short, The Black Eagles would fly. 


	5. Shadow of the Sun

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Battle for Myrrdin Bridge

Edelgard surveyed the grounds, watching her tight-knit units as they disabled the remaining defending forces methodically, one section at a time but leaving no easy way out or around to flank them.

_ This is almost over, aside from the boasting. Though not quite… _

She wasn't her mentor, but Edie's battlefield acumen was pretty sharp at this point. She had learnt from the best after all, and had the practice of her machinations when she was the mysterious "Flame Emperor", and nearly 5 years of war and leading either on the front lines or on a map of increasingly complexity. Her whole life had been a battlefield of sorts. This one was much easier to read and to play than the dirtier, underhanded war that was politics. 

_ Judith has only two options, now that we've outmanoeuvred her reinforcements, both desperate. Her troops can make a frantic dash for freedom, hoping just a few get away whilst the rest die, free to fight another day and inform Claude's other forces before my Wyvern divisions enter the fallen fort and consolidate our position here. They could mobilise Claude's army to strike before we take advantage here, and in the shorter term get help from nearby towns or camps who could move on us before the area is secure. But getting anyone out alive would be a risk - they wouldn't be able to fight, surrendering and surviving like they ought to would be near impossible and they'd need blind luck to get anyone out.  _

The other was to try and sacrifice herself to kill Edelgard, to rush her and cut off the head of the Empire's "serpent" as she had called them. 

_ She'll try both at once, hoping one succeeds.  _ Either would be a problem.

Partly because Edelgard would be dead. She didn't fear death, honestly at some points it had seemed like a better option than continuing on, but right now she had more to live for than she had for a long time, and had come so far and so close to her goals. She had fought for so long that it would be annoying to miss the chance to see it all succeed, and to risk failure. Yes, she didn't want to die, not right now, not any more.  _ Not now that's  _ **_she's_ ** _ back _ . More importantly, it would be a big inconvenience to her cause, albeit not necessarily, if she allowed herself a quiet quip, a fatal one, whatever Hubert said and her enemies probably believed. 

_ They also believe the religious propaganda, the manipulation of their faith and betrayal of any genuine divinity or entity worthy of being followed, that Seiros has spread, so I'm not sure their credence means a lot.  _

Except Claude. She didn't know what he believed in, though she had enough respect for him to presume it was something, but there was no way he was convinced by the Church's sham. Hopefully he would know that things wouldn't end with her death, as well. In fact, perhaps foolishly, she was relying on it as her contingency plan.

The smart thing would be to order Bernie or Leonie or Lysithea, or any of her ranged fighters and their squads in fact, to cut her down before she got anywhere near her, or to hide behind her friends. But sometimes you had to do a thing yourself, for many reasons.

She handed the custom forged battleaxe she was wielding to her armsbearer, and drew her Brigidan tomahawk, a weapon introduced to her by dear Petra and mastered under the keen eye of Byleth. Like so many others, several on her person in fact. Others with her men. One remained in Garreg Mach: her infamous, oversized axe, a faux Relic fashioned to respond to her (almost) unique Crests by her most hated allies. Amyr. It was a brutal weapon that required all her hard earned physical strength and conditioning to use, as well as the unnatural extra power her Crests could grant her. It was too heavy for this trip though, and too cumbersome for this type of mission, so it remained in her decoy's hands to help sell the image that she remained in the Monastery, unable to act as she tried to balance the scales. Plus she hated it.

She was ready for this.

  
  


The rest of the battle had been brutally efficient.

The Myrrdin Bridge fort that the Alliance held and used to control the crossing was excellently situated to not only spot attacks from the Empire early but to repel them, heavily fortified where it faced that side, fed by smaller forts in the area who looked over the river and allowed reinforcements to see when trouble was coming and prepare to lend support. It wasn't as well equipped to foresee or defend against attacks from the North, but as the Alliance was a reasonably loose coalition, it wasn't entirely vulnerable either and with only a small force, the Black Eagles wouldn't have been able to just march in from the North. With ballistas and the open landscape, a direct drop of assault troops or aerial strike was also too risky. They'd have been spotted if nothing and lose valuable time they needed to take the river before the armies loitering nearby disrupted them.

Edie had split her forces. She had targeted the fortress-town itself with Byleth, alongside Lysithea, Felix, Bernadetta, Petra, Dorothea, Leonie, Lindhart, Marianne and a small group of supporting units. Hubert and Ferdinand had led Alois, Shamir, Hapi and Yuri to hit the support camp just outside, both to stop more troops arriving but primarily to target the stables that prepared to send messengers on horseback or pegasus to inform the Alliance Capital and nearby Lords and camps of the attack. Edelgard intended that not a soul in Claude's ensemble would have a clue what had happened until it was much too late. Jeritza and Caspar led the rest of the Eagles to cover the road North of the bridge and intercept any surprises coming their way. As for entering the fort, they'd approached from the forest and been warped in, a few at a time, by Lindhart and Lysithea, the last of whom finally transported herself. Then they had struck quickly before anyone knew what had hit them.

As with any battle, the start was important and gave the Eagles an upper hand they made sure they never risked losing, painting a beautiful but terrible picture in blood and fire. Whether it was Dorothea driving them on between thunderbolts and dancing sword thrusts or Petra flowing between smooth headshots with her barbed arrows on the run and sliding between foes an eyeblink before an almost uncatchable flash of her sword left them headless, there was an art in this violence. It made Edelgard sick, but the sheer skill and grace of it thrilled her anyway. 

She'd contributed her own part to the likely victory: she wasn't the sort to sit back and let others risk their lives whilst she watched, even when there was some prudence in that. If she had been, she wouldn't even have been here at all. Her muscles ached, a beautiful ache, the earnt pain of hard work, and her hair was limp with the sweat she had to wipe off her brow and away from her eyes. A second of blindness was enough to end even the most capable warrior. She wasn't sure exactly how many shields she had shattered with her balanced axehead, how many limbs had shattered too as she swept at them, a wildcat on the move. The blood she owed the world for her war, she would pay it, but first she had to add to the weight of her crimes. It was grossly unfair on these soldiers whose only sin was being born in a land that opposed her. Then again, she knew as well as anyone that life was rarely fair. It only hurt that to make it fairer in the long term ( _ for any fairness, any justice this world holds must come from the hand of humanity, and a construct is no less real for being a construct, if we make it so _ ) she had to spread so much suffering and inequity now. So be it, another burden she could bear. Let them call her hypocrite. At least she owned it.

Now she saw all around her in slow motion as Judith ran, dragging through treacle in her mind's eye, her huge ax in her hand as she pumped her arms. She had no idea, never did have, whether she physically turned her head to take it all in but if she did, she absorbed the picture around her as whole and in all its details in a single glance. She almost saw her own body, half-feeling like she was floating above it like a ghost, the phantom of her murdered, suicide soul. Or her mind so detached from her emotions and the confines of her body that it had manifested separately. 

She saw Bernie, who had already decorated the field with her arrows, each as precisely placed as one of her brush strokes, each now sticking out of those corpses that were devoid of life, of tone that they seemed part of the scenery rather than one human, covered Felix as he sliced down men to a measured rhythm, perfect time kept by the harsh sounds of clanging steel and the soft, wet sounds of yielding flesh. Lindhart was done with healing wounds, with making this fight against the odds one they couldn't lose as even the worst injury became a memory against his skill, Cethleann's staff (how the saints must regret leaving that in the Professor's hands now, must rue the price of seeking the house's help in their personal affairs) boosting his already proficient talent, and now cast down brave but bewildered enemies with waves of light and wind. By his side, Lysithea wrought her beautiful, deadly light show, the world twisting around her in violet light and shadow as she stood serenely in the eye of her maelstrom. Hubert had once said she had the potential and the drive to be the greatest mage of their time, and she looked it now.

Petra and Dorothea danced back to back, a last-minute desperate rush from the forces in their corner finding you couldn't truly surround something you couldn't pin down, couldn't wound what you couldn't hit. Leonie and Marianne, one galloping on blurring equine legs with her poised body frozen in perfect form as she lined up a shot with all the time in the world despite her speed, the other gliding gracefully, magic aiding her own two legs, face set in determination, headed as planned to cut off the Northward exit. Everyone was doing their task.

And then there was Byleth. Watching her fight had been a distraction, so elegant were her movements on her equally distracting buxom, muscular frame. She had sidestepped past a dozen strikes, replying with flashes of her rapier, fists, of flame and of searing light - the sacred sword strapped unused on her back. Now she shepherded up the members of the Golden Deer who had opposed them here, directly taken out of action and made hostage by herself. Big, lovable but obedient Raphael lay unconscious, enthusiastic Ignatz bound and held by Byleth's mercenaries, inherited from her father.  _ That leaves, with Leonie, Lysithea and Marianne in our camp, just Lorenz, Hilda and Claude himself. And I think I know Lorenz's next move _ . Trying to avoid killing their friends had been important on one level, hence Byleth taking the task herself, but practically having key allies of Claude's to ransom gave them leverage if things went sour and would help prevent an ongoing principled revolution if they won. Either you made your enemies your allies one way or another, you cut a deal, or you crushed them entirely then salted the earth, and the latter both made Edelgard feel revolted ( _ I'll do it if it's the only way, though  _ the dark piece inside of her thought.  _ Who am I to have scruples now, to put my own conscience ahead of the means of the many? _ ) and would take extra time and manpower they needed elsewhere.  _ The pitfalls of having so many who hate me.  _

The warriors in question, who surely hated her too, weren't nobles, but were Claude's friends and key agents and so were valuable anyway. To be honest, it revolted Edelgard that only nobles had the life-saving option, the “value” to be swapped for money or deals or other “worthy” prisoners. The working classes and the fighting “common” folk were cheap as far as war was concerned, replaceable resources more than individual human lives with intrinsic value. That would change. The idea that some were born with more quality or merit than others was absurd, and fuelled by the reward that Seiros had granted generation after generation of those who obeyed her and supported her. 

_ You start with the worth of a human being. And any value you gain or lose after that is a consequence of what you think and how you act, not who you are and where and to whom you were born, or what name and crest you bear. _

Where did that leave Edelgard? Ahead or behind where she had started with her humanity? Did she even have that humanity left after all she had sacrificed?

At least she would spare her soul the weight of as many lives as she could have mercy on, though mercy was a luxury for a general nevermind a ruler.

_ Speaking of noble-borns that I am trying to spare…. _

  
  


Almost no time had passed in that strange fugue in which time had frozen and she had been perfectly aware of everything around her at once. Sometimes that seemed to happen to her, and she felt like she had all the time in the world to pick her move. She felt Byleth had a similar aura of time around her, maybe even more so - she seemed to have a gift for knowing exactly how things would have gone had she made another choice in combat. Maybe that was what made her feel so connected to her, so, if she allowed herself to believe in a fairytale so trite,  **destined** to be with her even if she could never be  **with** her.

Judith was just a few strides away now, within striking distance.

Edelgard brought down her arm in a fluid arc, accelerating smoothly through, eyes now fixed on Judith (had they ever not been? She had no idea). Her hand opened, directed by instinct and her heart, and time flew again. As did her tomahawk, screaming at Judith’s face mid-charge like divine wrath. 

The battle-hardened lady was too good to fall to so simple a strike, but it was well thrown and came with all of Edelgard’s deceptive strength, perfect technique and the speed of a thunderbolt. The enemy lord batted it away with her Hexlock shield, not stopping but checking her momentum and altering her balance  **just** enough. 

It was all she needed. Edelgard pounced like her House’s namesake. Within a split second she had traversed the space between them, her offhand drawing her second hatchet in a vicious angled semi-circle that Von Daphnel could barely parry with her rapier, before punching her straight in the jaw with a savage jab, staggering her back, followed through with a feint with her axe that drew the magic-infused shield up to cover her neck, opening her legs to the sabre Edelgard had drawn and swung with one movement. She felt the give as she sliced through thigh and heard the grunt of pain. Judith stumbled, her knee half-bending, but she didn't buckle. Suddenly Edelgard was on the defensive, warding away several shockingly powerful blows. She was in her lighter armour, her full plate unsuited to the airborne journey here, so she couldn't just take the hits as she often would. She was tough though - it would take a lot to kill or maim her, and Lindhart was here to help heal her (or Byleth, if she could bear to let her get close enough to lay hands on her body without cracking)- so she might accept one major wound if it let her end this fight.  _ Judith is wounded now, but fresh, and I am sore and weary already. I'm not sure whether a prolonged bout or a brief one best plays in my favour. _ Von Daphnel was very skilled, but after a few more exchanges, Edelgard knew she would win this fight. She saw her opportunity, a looser thrust that had no chance of being recoiled in time, taking it to her shoulder as she hooked her axehead on the rim of the Hexlock shield, then twisted, with her arm to attack the shield but also with her whole body and weight. The rapier went through her and continued to move as she yielded to it, Judith unable to yank it from her flesh and not quick enough to let go given the surprise move. Her right side of her body followed through as Edelgard simultaneously wrenched the shield bound to her arm to the side and drove her left hand side backwards, pivoting at the hips as if she were hewing a trunk (wooden or human) with her axe. Now teetering off balance, Judith was helpless as Edelgard lunged her leg forward and completed a spin, letting the falling, faltering Judith past her and into the dirt on her side, with all the grace and mobility of a cow that had shoved over, shield half-torn away and trapped beneath her and sword sticking into Edelgard's deltoid, out of her hand. With Edelgard now facing her, armed twice over and staring down from a (rare) height advantage. 

"It's not often I get to look down at an enemy," it was best to own the things people tried to mock you with. People had always let Edelgard know that she was short, as well as cold and, though she felt this was less fair, flat. She used that height to her advantage, as obsessed as certain fighters were with the benefits of "reach", and used their complacency to her advantage too. And never let them hurt her with it. "Best get used to it though. This is wear you accept the inevitable, as you should have done when we offered you the chance after our initial attack, and lay down your arms."

She wouldn't, not yet. Edelgard expected spittle in her face, and wasn't disappointed. Well, poor choice of words. As Judith spat, she declared with venom. "I would rather die than surrender to you, invader. Heretic."

Not exactly unexpected. 

"That would be much easier for me, trust me. No, shut up. But you will be much more valuable to everyone, and that includes Claude and it certainly includes you, alive."

She counted to three then side-stepped as Judith's wounded, predictable rush clattered past her, and gave the stubborn woman a precise, deliberate cut to the back of her leg, one that stopped her getting up again, as it collapsed, unable to take her weight. 

She had never been in any danger there, even if she had been foolish enough not to expect the attack. At this point, her men had Judith's personal guard utterly under tight wrap, and almost any one of her officers, including her watchful teacher, were capable of making a shot or spell that would end the opposing lady's life. That was the entire aim of Judith's move, and she wouldn't allow her that small victory. They'd discussed it as a squad earlier. 

"How about now?"

She still struggled to her feet, and Edelgard had to admire her determination. "Ok, we'll do it your way."

* **Thump** *

One blow with the haft of her weapon and Judith was out cold, and the little remaining resistance quickly yielded. Despite the ferocity of their attack, the Eagles had caused fewer casualties than expected.  _ That's something, at least.  _

She tried to move her wounded arm, grimacing as she pulled the blade from it, followed by a rush of pain and a gush of blood. There had already been a lot of bleeding, a steady flow she had felt whilst she finished off Judith Von Daphnel with considered bravado. Now she staggered with the release of her adrenaline, the pain overwhelming and the blood loss not insubstantial. This was a worse wound that she had believed and she had left it too long.  _ Maybe it caught a major vein? _ Every healer moved towards her at once. Lindhart or Marianne could have done it from afar, but, whether they hadn't considered the option or whether they had done and decided to encourage… this thing, no distant magical flow came. The first one to her was Byleth, face drawn with concern. 

_ Such a gorgeous face _ , Edie thought light-headedly, the world spinning. Such a gorgeous body too. Here I am, slender, short but with bulky thighs and man's shoulders. Whereas she's there with a hard warrior's strong arms, long legs and a soft woman's bust. She would never go for me.

Byleth reached down, whispering words she couldn't hear.  _ I wish I could hear you. I love your voice. I love the way you only speak when you truly have something to say, never superfluous, no small talk.  _

The world was getting dim, and all she could see was her beloved's verdant eyes, seemingly pouring out a divine light. 

_ I love you.  _

_ I wish she would pick me up in those strong arms _ .

Byleth now glowed all over with warm light. White light, the sort that streamed from the golden sun.

_ Usually she's like a Verdant Rain Moon, a softer glow. Both ways suit her. What is the Moon after all but the shadow of the Sun, a silhouette of light on darkness... _

Warmth flowed through her sticky arm and the now numb shoulder then through her entire body. Energy and a clean sensation, the absence of pain and of weakness, followed it. 

_ She healed me. Ok, it's time to finish things here, prepare for the troops to come in.  _

But Byleth hushed her and gently held her to the ground. "Rest, Edie. We can take it from here. You won. We won. But you need to rest".

In the end, Edelgard never had it in her to disobey her Professor. She closed her eyes, and trusted her friends with the rest.

  
  



	6. Columbines for Freyja, goddess of sex and war

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Byleth and Edelgard spar after victory

The rest of the mission was slick and successful. With Edie recuperating in the officer's quarters, she simply received (demanded) the updates, but Hubert and Jeritza had stopped any scouts getting away to reinforcements or to Derdriu, and had occupied both the support camps and nearest settlements, the Wyvern squadrons that had flown them all here settling there and holding them. The prisoners were all secured and the forces that had taken the fort itself pressed across the bridge, driving the remaining troops on it into the waiting arms of the Adrestian army, informed by carrier hawk sent the moment The Black Eagles had landed in forest a few hours from Myrrdin. Sensibly, the Alliance remnants had surrendered at once, and the front most brigade of the Empire had marched into Leicester territory, effectively creating a new border and shifting the entire war. 

Obviously once he had arrived at Myrrdin itself Hubert, though as cold-blooded and outwardly calm and deferential as ever, was livid with her for putting herself in danger.  _ He doesn't get it. _ From the wound itself, though she had underestimated it and still felt queasy at the warm rivulets that had carved through the valley of her crooked elbow, she had been in no danger at all. Not with five talented healers around her. As for the combat itself, she had to be in the vicinity to complete this campaign: she needed to be there in person when Derdriu and Claude fell, as he well knew, and now she had a fingerhold in the Alliance, she intended that moment to happen within a month. Momentum was key, and she couldn't afford to lose it and slip into inertia, pinned by the indecision until Thales had her by the throat even if she ground down Rhea. And both on the campaign map and the battlefield, if you were a leader reliant on something other than the static world that gave you the throne, a world you had started tearing down to the fury of half the lords in your Empire, you had to give your soldiers another reason other than blind loyalty, fear or reflexive obedience to the hierarchy you intended to shatter to follow your command. 

People who wanted to change the world needed to be inspirational, and hiding behind walls whilst others made all the action and risked their lives for you, that only inspired contempt. 

Byleth understood this, as did some of the others. Hubert did on one level too, but his fear for her safety would always overrule his desire to give her autonomy.  _ He can be dangerous that way.  _ He might act without her permission if he thought it were in her interests. He'd never betray her though. 

Byleth seemed to understand her more than she could ever imagine, with a connection deeper than even her childhood links with Hubert and Caspar. It was like she had a window into her mind, or at least her motivations. She never really needed to explain her thinking to her, or justify her actions, though she still felt drawn to, that need to make sure Byleth wouldn't hate her for her part in everything that had hurt people. That in itself was a level of vulnerability she had never felt before. Nobody had really earned that degree of devotion, almost an emotional fealty, from her, that feeling that she owed them more than they owed her and the world owed her. It was more than that, although she confessed that the help, the loyalty and the salvation Byleth had shown her not only merited her own in return but had bred it in her instinctively. She also couldn't stand the thought of hurting her. 

The night after the battle, she had explained everything. Her broad plans, who Lord Arundel now truly was (she had scowled at that, but understood why they didn't attack him yet, why she had worked alongside him though not with him), what she had intended to do with the Crest Stones and what she thought they were. What Thales had thought they were going to do with the Crest Stones which was another thing altogether. The world she wanted to build. Byleth listened, without judgement, and made her feel wholer than she had in a lifetime. 

Over the next few days, they consolidated their grip, and as they recovered from battle, trained hard, not letting temporary victory dull their wits and slacken their muscles. Complacency was something Edelgard had seen and used in her opponents all her life, for being female (in a world that was ruled by one, in all but name!), for being young, for being petite. She refused to ever, ever fall to that particular curse. She had many faults, but taking what she had for granted or disrespecting an enemy was something she would never repeat. 

The Eagles flew out on missions every few day to strengthen their position. Edelgard continued to rule by messages sent by mage, and, with Byleth and Hubert, to help direct her forces. And they sent other messages to various lords of the Alliance, now that it was too late to stop the Empire and word of the collapse of Leicester's Southern frontier was spreading knowledge.

One to Claude, first, to let him know his relative and his friends still lived (the transience of that state implied only in subtext), but also to other lords whose intervention could slow down or speed up what was now inevitable. 

And on that matter, two days after taking the Bridge, their camp had a visitor, one who might be unexpected to most but Edelgard had been counting on making an appearance. Lorenz, the son of Lord Gloucester, their school-mate and classmate of Claude as well as the rest of the Golden Deer, representing both himself and his father. The pressure around them had forced House Gloucester into visible neutrality, always careful players of the game, but they had long been close to the Empire and had tensions with House Riegan, and Lorenz had shown his distrust and disdain for Claude and his sudden appearance in Leicester politics widely known whilst in the Academy. The only question in Edelgard's mind had been whether he and his father would dare act against the Church, but she knew that both chafed at the fact that the Archbishop demanded that all nobles, unlike commoners, must be members of the Church of Seiros or be ostracised and punished. She couldn't blame them for that - it felt somewhat privileged to complain where the common folk had so little, but one's faith and beliefs should be one's own and not policed as a basic right. Controlling them, because the Houses had power and were harder to dominate in other ways, was merely one way in which Seiros enforced obedience and adhesion to her view of what the world should be (she knew she intended to impose her own changes on the world based on her vision of it, but then she didn't intend to stick around to stop it evolving and to kill off any dissenting voices). 

In essence Lorenz's appearance hadn't been much of a gamble. 

With him he brought his father's allegiance and the space of the Duchy of Gloucester, which basically sealed a new border between the Alliance and her Empire that gave her easy access to Derdriu. And himself, a not insubstantial gift, both in terms of more insight into the Alliance, its Capital and Claude, and in terms of his talents in combat. He was a skilled horseman and lance-wielder as well as a mage, and rumour said he had been focusing on dark magic in the last few years.  _ Well, Hubert and Lysithea can give him some advice _ . She could always use strong mages. He joined training like everyone else - they all had to keep sharp and it had been years since Lorenz had fought with his old teammates. 

Edelgard, despite her other duties and the momentum with which her forces pressed up through the newly yielded territory to clamp down on the Alliance and isolate Derdriu as much as possible before they attacked, managed to train hard as well. If she could avoid opening herself to another blow like the last one, she'd be happy. Despite the complete healing of the wound, it still made her shiver to recall the sudden warmth on her arm and chill everywhere else, and the sight of her life's water seeping through her armour. It had taken her a couple of days to completely recover (healers could fix wounds, but you had to let the blood regrow as she understood it, that was much harder to speed up. Though, as she knew, and suspected she wasn't alone amongst them - her research had shown Jeraldt had received this from Seiros, who wasn't adverse to experimentation with her bloodline herself it seemed, and she had her suspicions about Yuri and his unique Crest - you could give your blood to others, if you altered one with magic. Her own "augmentations" had been of a different nature). 

At first she just ran through her stances with the axe and sword, and did some flexibility work, before moving on to exercising her Wyvern, Nightstorm (she'd named the creature as a pretentious adolescent high on her own sense of morbid destiny, the name made her blush internally now, but it was his name and he wasn't going to answer to a different one now) and some movement work in borrowed full plate (hers was on the way from Garreg Mach).

Then about a week in it was time to spar, finally given the go ahead by her own instincts and the doctoring team of Lindhart and Mercedes.

She went through a couple of sessions with a sword trainer, then used her axe to thrash a cocky Ferdinand. 

_ He's grown up. But he still strives to show that he's the best, and that always makes him vulnerable. _

He always tricked himself into thinking she'd be weaker than she was and that her lack of reach was something to exploit, despite repeated evidence to the contrary. So many men did, as part of their egos. She knew she was slender and well as short, and people assumed that this was a bad combination with her weapon type of choice. But her shoulders and her lower limb muscles, her back, they were taut, lithe with muscles, empowered by conditioning but also by her unholy Crests, the reflected strength of the being that was, in reality, the "goddess" of this land (how ironic that she'd use it to end her reign) and the one that most challenged her once (reputedly that of the "true" goddess herself if such a thing existed). Her leg muscles, though people forgot to focus there (an advantage of not only her trim, tight figure and diminutive stature but also her eerie features, with "eyes of wine and hair of moonlight strands" as one suitor had called them. His work in bed hadn't matched the promise his wordplay implied and had partly convinced her that she really preferred girls, but it was a good line. She knew she was attractive, and that was another thing that men let ruin them in combat) were powerful for her figure. And strength with an axe relied more on technique than most realised, the acceleration you could put behind a blow more important. Basically, she was stronger than they thought, and more observant and quicker than they could imagine. 

Hubert would tease him about it later in his deadpan, snarking way, but then that was the relationship they shared. That and the clandestine kisses in dark corners. She didn't know if they had moved any further than that physically, but she was happy for both of them. In part because it had allowed Hubert's long-held infatuation with her, always slightly stressful as he was her closest advisor and best friend and she didn't see him that way, to dissipate, but also because they deserved something beautiful in this stark world that they had made starker. 

"Stop embarrassing Von Aegir and see if you're ready for a proper work out. You've worked off any rust with the axe and the sword, but that's where you're safest, where there's the least luck, our true worst enemy, after laxness, to neutralise. Gauntlets and close quarters, now."

That voice, the one and only that could issue her instructions like they were commands that couldn't be ignored, sent shivers down her spine. Pleasurable ones, for sure, but still a weakness. Her heart cantered in a way that clashing steel with Ferdinand simply had gotten nowhere near matching, that little bout seemed pedestrian compared to the thought of being close, maybe skin to skin, with the queen of her nightly Dreamworld.  _ Steady! You are not only a grown woman but one who rules half the continent, El. It's time you acted like it. _

Despite her reproach, she couldn't help but take a second of sheer hypocrisy to stare at Byleth as she turned around, gaping as much as any of those cock-brained idiots she had just mentally berated would do at her. In silk, Byleth was a gorgeous lady, elegant and calm, her otherworldly hair and eyes creating a fey beauty that Edelgard guessed had a similar appeal to her own ethereal allure. She was charming and feminine, with focus drawn to her long legs, her lush curves and her fine nose and long lashes. It was a look many adored in their lovers. Certainly Edelgard found it attractive and would never object to that sight should it be available. But the stately, refined, soft queen of peace wasn't the image of her that Edie had burnt into her mind's eye, dominating her dreams, sometimes dominating her in dreams. Her fantasies. It wasn't the image that she had tried, inadequately, to give life on canvas in her room in the monastery since Byleth had returned from the dead like a hero of myth, like a deity reawoken, the one she worked on every morning and hid from everyone. 

No, that was this Byleth. 

Well, usually she appeared more armoured, the flash of burnished steel in her hand where she bore the silver flame tongue of her rapier or the true, swaying tail of fire, the lade only she could hold, contrasting with the dull steel of her vambrace and breastplate, padded with leather that left her as swift and powerful as a mountain lion, as explosive and fluent as a river snake. But Edelgard could live with this less covered version, still the same fierce goddess of war underneath. Suddenly the stance was different, pure ready danger, and the focus was all on the athletic calves and muscular thighs, the biceps of carved marble, the features as strong and hard as stone, with a proud mouth and the glow from her eyes that of a storm of souls. Dressed just in leather and linen, with her legs showing and her shirt rolled up to expose her perfectly smooth abdomen, muscles rippling just below a healthy layer of flesh, she hypnotised the Empress for a moment. Then, as the wooden gauntlets Byleth wore blurred towards her, Edelgard let her instincts take over and came to life. 

This fight was gruelling, and the canter of Edelgard's heart had quickly risen to a gallop as she blocked and caught vicious punches and elbows from the woman she loved, the touch she desired so much now cruelly there for her but bringing only pain and exhaustion. Byleth never underestimated anyone, and she fought relentlessly, hands as fast as a card shark, feet as nimble as a dancer, each blow hitting like a hammer but cracking back like a whip. 

They both gave it their all, well matched in this form of combat. Edelgard could take a punch, and though she was at a disadvantage whenever Byleth fended her away outside of her span, she was quick enough and canny enough to get inside her guard periodically and force her back with elbow strikes that hit abdominal muscles as tough as teak. They both landed hits that would have incapacitated normal warriors, both toughened by their training but more by their strange Crests, a link between them with the dubious experimentation both had endured to get them to this point. Byleth was something more than human, but Thales and his beastly scientists, his heartless mages who had seen her as nothing more than a piece of meat to shape as they wished, they had made her more than human too. 

She grunted as Byleth kicked her in the side, her ribs creaking and her kidney protesting but it took more than that to break her body. She riposted with a false swipe at the face, letting Byleth catch her hand. Her breath stopped for a treasonous second, but her limbs, they knew what to do, and hauled her opponent in to the gut-shattering knee she was bringing up, winding her teacher and bringing her into grappling distance, where Edelgard's size was a blessing not a curse. 

Still, you couldn't beat the goddess of war that easily, and Byleth immediately reacted by rolling to the ground and taking Edie with her, both fighting desperately for purchase. 

All four gauntlets went clattering across the floor as they struggled and moved through a dozen positions and attempted locks and tumbles within seconds. They had a large crowd now, placing bets and encouraging each of them, intrigued to see who would come out on top between the Eagles' and the Empire's two greatest close up fighters, two leaders, two legends. 

_ I am the Emperor. I can't afford to be seen as beatable by anyone _ . 

That wasn't true, not in this group who understood how leadership and battle worked, how nobody could win every battle but it didn't matter if you won the war, and how a leader's main role was to plan and lead and take responsibility, not be personally invincible. How having two equally great fighters and generals was much better than one, or none. And she knew it. 

But the lie was the motivation Edelgard needed to win this fight. She flipped Byleth off her and drove forward her advantage, weaponising her momentum. 

  
  


She nearly pulled Byleth into a vice-like hold, but the other woman slipped out like an oiled eel, and managed to pin Edelgard into a headlock, her chin pressed against one perfect, hot breast and her nose and eyes lodged into her uncovered armpit whilst she tightened around her face with impossibly strong muscled and held her opposite arm away with a clamping grip on her wrist, leaving it powerless. 

Suddenly El was overwhelmed by Byleth's scent. No, her stench, stinking of sweat and pure woman. Her. Raw. Unaltered and undisguised. The aroma of Byleth in perfume at the ball not long ago had struck Edelgard straight in her heart and soul, a pure essence of romance and love. This was lust, pheromones that drove hormones and sang straight to Edelgard's body. Her primitive gut and her mound, making her unable to think about anything but sex, left more helpless by that than by any direct hold. It was humiliating, not being grabbed so in a fight, where anything went and she could work her way out, if she wanted to. But knowing how animalistic she felt and how much she wanted to give in and let Byleth ravage her.  _ It would be so easy to just give her over control of my whole body, to lie prone and resist in no way other than to beg if she made no moves. I can't believe how much I want to let her be the ruler, to submit and accept her as my better… _

_ It would be so nice not to be in charge, to cease being this infallible symbol, the Emperor for one day, and just to be a woman and let everything that comes with command go... _

But, whatever kinks, completely unexplored in her previous experiences (she was the Emperor, damn it, and what lover could she endure to have power over her?), had surfaced, combat was a place where surrender, no matter how enticing, was anathema to her being. With a yell and a heave, trimmed scrub of hair brushing against her face as she pushed herself up to her knees, she used her free arm to grab Byleth's shorts at the hem, aware of how dangerously, temptingly close she was to a spot she longed to explore, and, hand still in her tutor's grip, lifted her onto her shoulders as she turned and dragged herself to her feet, before throwing Byleth with all her might from her full, admittedly hardly colossal, height. As soon as her mentor hit the floor, the air leaving her lungs with a huge reverse sigh, she threw herself upon her, yanking her arm behind her back and trapping her legs beneath her as she twisted and beseeched her to surrender, a sentiment that at once felt as natural as it did utterly impossible. 

_ This is over now, Sensei. Submit!  _

Which one was she truly? The conquering master who had to be in control of everything, unbeholden to anyone but her own principles and her people? Or the student hungry for the praise, and, yes, the liberating commands too, the freedom from responsibility, that came from her teacher? They both felt genuine sometimes. They had both been shaped by the world, and felt like a mask sometimes.  _ Who am I? _

Somehow, Byleth had resisted the pressure on her shoulder and managed to use her free hand to slam a fist into her jaw and somehow wriggle her way free, leaving each of them now separated by an armspan, drenched in sweat and out of breath. Her hair was a mess and her face was bright red, with dirt rubbed across half of it. 

Edelgard had never wanted someone more in her entire life. 

"Your Majesty! Commander Byleth! Be coming quickly, we are having news from Derdriu! Our spies are returning, yes?"

And like that, the moment was broken and Edelgard was free again, trapped again. The most powerful person in Fodlan, powerless to the duty her power demanded. A little girl whose dreams were strewn to the winds of fate and necessity. 

The masses would have to wait for their victor, the end to their spectacular, brutal show. 

Duty called and duty always came first. 

  
  



	7. Wine for the soul

_ Derdriu, the Aquatic City… _

It was undoubtedly a trap, but a beautiful one for sure, floating in the middle of Drenden Bay. A sparkling diamond in a sea of emerald, one of the finest cities of the world, surrounded by a hook of land but the island not touching land at all. She could see it now from Lindhart's and Constance's lens of manipulated air and light - it wouldn't do to overstuff their already significant egos, but this idea of theirs was genius. It looked quiet, which was basically confirmation of the trap within as far as she was concerned.

It was also a trap that Edelgard intended to set off herself, and catch her foe in it. One she had to: this was the seat of the Round Table, the House of Riegan and the essence of the Alliance. If she took it and Claude together, the Alliance would fall and quickly. But if he escaped, the Alliance might fight on longer and sap their strength, and he would surely be driven to seek aid from Dimitri and Seiros, and those two with his acumen would be genuinely too dangerous to contemplate. She also knew his little secret. She knew who he had to come to his aid, and she didn't intend to unite Fodlan and free it from the tyranny of two ageless monsters for it to fall into the hands of an invading foreign army. No, she had to sail into the trap, lest Claude himself decided it was time to flee it. She knew he was still there - her spies in the city couldn't leave and her spies outside couldn't get in but the former could still communicate with the latter. Claude could stop any boat from going between the island and the shore but messenger falcons were another story. 

He had set things up so that the island was isolated, but also left it without too much defence on the shore, to avoid bloodshed that he couldn't win there now that Gloucester had joined her and Edmund was wary of conflict with Marianne working with the Empire. She respected that in Claude, that he wouldn't fight where he couldn't win and wouldn't waste the blood of his people. She wished everyone felt that way. She hoped, therefore, that she could convince him that he couldn't win as soon as possible. But the issues with Derdriu lay in its unique location. 

As it stood in the sea with its famous log-bridges retracted to cut it off by land, Edelgard's army, completely separated from its navy by two nations, couldn't get across there, meaning once again she could only take it by Wyvern or by a small group using the few ships Lorenz had brought them. Which realistically, taking famous aerial defences into account, meant the Eagles themselves had to lead the assault. In addition, though Leicester's merchant navy was scattered and would struggle, their role protecting tradeships and skirmishing with pirates, to take the island back once she held it (it was designed to be impenetrable by sea to the North), Edelgard rather suspected that Claude had access to a fleet whose specialty was raiding and sea-to-land combat. 

A tough nut to crack. 

Edelgard found that the most effective way to crack a nut was as directly and swiftly as possible, with a hammer.

***

The crossing had been smooth and the front gate, not really designed to defend the city from an attack from the land, couldn't hold up to the sheer firepower that arrived in the form of Edelgard's mages. She had never felt happier to have somehow won over not one, but several adept magic users to aid Lindhart and Hubert. And Byleth herself, who spewed fire and light with all the ferocity of her maker's true form but, with it not being spat out in her breath, far more precision. Lindhart drove their small ships on with a control of the wind that would have made him seem a god to a more primitive people, with Mercedes and Manuela mending any wounds the token defence forces' arrows could inflict faster than the archers could shoot them. Edelgard was under no illusions here. Claude expected them to reach the island, and that was where the real defence would start. The other defences were obliterated in a multicoloured storm of power, bolts of thunder thrown by Constance in the air as far as the eye could see, abetted by lightning summoned by Dorothea. Between them, Hapi, Hubert and Lysithea wrought a pattern of dark energy that disintegrated physical barriers and sent men fleeing in the water, drowning preferable to being hauled into whatever dimension they were rifting reality into. Waves of fire from Byleth and Annette (supported by Hanneman) tore ship sails apart before they could make contact, giving the sailors time to hurry into their lifeboats. And the few attacks they received from the air found themselves warded off with stabs of light from Marianne, aided by Yuri and Balthus.

With minimal fuss, they landed.

***

_ What do you have waiting for us, Claude? What is your little trap?  _

Ships and via them more soldiers than had been reported, no doubt. Aid from Almyra? And certainly two Heroes' Relics wielded by Crestbearers. That was enough to end this mission if they were too sloppy. 

She had, as they advanced through quickly surrendered Riegan Territory (Claude's armies had fought in places but largely retreated to the East: they were still a danger, could pincer in, but with her own wider forces not committed to this assault, she knew she had him outmanned and ready for an ambush), lectured the Eagles on what they faced. And the true history of Fodlan, as she'd been told it.

Failnaught, an infamous Relic that spat death from as far as the eye could see. Once of Riegan himself. "The Hero". Well, she knew better than most that the Elites weren't the heroes Seiros painted them as. Her family had passed down what they professed as the true tale - that these heroes fought  **with** Nemesis, who wasn't a monster but a mere man,  **against** Seiros, and for whatever reason she had changed history to make them her allies when she had won. Why they fought was unclear, but her father said it was unimportant. They had fought for humanity. As she did, against two puppet masters, one malign and with hands on her own strings, ones she longed to snip as soon as it was safe, the other apathetic and blind to the possibility of her own failings. Would Claude? 

They'd soon see. 

***

It was chaos. Luckily they'd trained to adapt to the unpredictable, not to rely on plans for every circumstance. The latter was impossible, the former just required calm nerves and flexible thinking. Edelgard was as steady and as supple as a rapier, and Byleth made her seem a panicking child. 

Claude had packed the city with more warrior than they were expecting, crack troops as far as he had available, with Judith and his Deer in chains and Holst driven East. Enough to potentially surround the Black Eagles if they loitered, and that would make things almost impossible. Chief amongst his own captains stood Hilda Goneril, as cheerful a girl as Edelgard had ever met, but also the finest axe champion she had seen after herself (what was the point of false modesty? Her proficiency in that area had been hard-earned, and a gruelling three rounds in the Monastery Expert tournament confirmed that whilst Hilda was tough Edelgard was better. Or had been, 5 years ago). Nevermind Claude himself…

But that was the less frightening revelation on offer.

There weren't just a few Almyran warriors and ships in Derdriu. There was a full fleet of pirates there, and from what Edie could see swarms of Wyverns that blotted out the sun. A dark cloud of wings and claws and savage, rending teeth. 

Enough mobile, hard-hitting power that even if Derdriu was taken, they could wreak havoc along the Alliance Coast, forcing this war into the sea and air. Enough to tip the fight towards the Kingdom of Faerghus if Claude supported them. But locked away here, as long as they didn't take her captive, they could be penned in and make Claude entirely powerless. She had to stop them from leaving and Claude from leaving, as well as taking the city. 

However, Claude's aim here, more than anything, was to avoid excess bloodshed. He had avoided treating with her ambassadors 5 years ago or now, but he had also fought this conflict to minimalise death, defending what he could defend and making raids but falling back if the short term objective was hopeless. Any extension to the war in Leicester would be bloody and vicious and involve probably piracy on his own people. Claude would want to finish this today as well, would feel he had to. That meant capturing or killing Edelgard herself realistically. Ironic, then, that in those circumstances she planned to hand over the reins of her campaign, including the remaining Eagles and Byleth, to him. Fortunately, he wouldn't know that. Best not give him another incentive to succeed. 

This all came down to today, then. They'd both be able to draw out their fight and test the other with an escape or partial victory, but deep down she knew they'd both stay and fight until one of them captured the other.

***

  
  


They'd split into teams already, their objectives clear. Someone had to stop the Almyran army and swarms of Wyvern fighters either from disembarking and overwhelming their strike force or escaping altogether. Someone had to systematically take the city's battlements and lock the city down further, to cover the sea and the air lest Claude and his allies escape. Someone had to seize the stronghold and capture Claude himself, and El had to lead that group realistically. Someone to watch for being outflanked and clear the centre of the city.

And someone had to defend their rear against his most dangerous ally, the Beguiling Berserker, Hilda Goneril. The sister of the Alliance war hero, Lord Holst, whom her armies had defeated and driven back, still dangerous, to the lands of Goneril. Not his equal tactically, but as an inspirer of her men and a personal threat in combat she was possibly even more potent. Armed with the Relic once held by her family namesake and original (well, not quite, but in human terms) holder of her Crest - the mammoth, Behemoth Axe that was Freikugel. She had even considered fighting might with might and grabbing Amyr (she'd had it transported across for this battle. After all, as much as she loathed it, what was the point of a monster Crest-bound battleaxe if not for battles like this?) to face Hilda herself, but had dismissed it quickly. A vain and pointless risk in this case and she had to get to Claude as quickly as possible. Besides the aim was to keep her alive, and though she had  **liked** Hilda, enjoying her boisterousness and her straight-forward approach and shameless flirting (a little less direct than Dorothea, but just as obvious from afar) with anything and anyone when they had teamed up in Abyss, she didn't think Hilda would hold back from someone she surely viewed as a monster like her. De-escalating the stakes would be better managed by almost anyone else. 

In the end, she sent Lorenz, who had been on Hilda’s side the most recently, as well as Caspar who seemed best able to neutralise her non-lethally. Marianne however insisted, in a most uncharacteristically assertive way, on joining that group, stuttering and blushing when Edelgard asked why but still maintaining eye contact and pushing more than she had ever seen the once almost fatally timid maiden push. Marianne was no longer so timorous and fragile, and had gained confidence once she had realised how welcome she was in this group and how they valued her skills and her kind nature, but being forceful was still anathema to her nature. It was so out of character that Edelgard didn’t probe any further. Self-deprecating Marianne wouldn’t do something she was so obviously uncomfortable with and confront anyone let alone her leader unless she had good reason, and whilst Edelgard tried to learn her party’s little secrets where possible, to support them in as non-intrusive a way as she could (and to identify any potential threats), she would never press someone for something that they wanted to keep hidden. She knew all about Marianne’s more risky mysteries: her parentage and the Crest she bore that scared her so, and she would support her in confronting these the moment Marianne declared herself ready or seemed so, but in this she would step back and trust her. Her quicksilver blade and ability to drain or heal life would make her useful against Hilda anyway - if someone became mortally wounded, she could turn things around. 

After a moment’s thought and non-verbal discussion with Byleth, Edie added Balthus and Hapi to that team as well, the better to cope with any surprises.

The other teams became apparent quickly, with a focus on arrows and magic against the Almyran airborne horde. For Claude himself, Edelgard wanted to act as swiftly as at all possible. Several of them had brought steeds to that end, to make a direct bee-line for their enemy’s wily commander. The Eagles were all flexible, able to fight in at least two different ways in combat depending on the situation. Edelgard herself had eschewed her heavier armour and brought Nightstorm, and Byleth her own silverwhite pegasus, Moonshadow. Leonie rode her winged stallion, Captain (transparently named, Edie thought), and Ferdinand and Petra rode their Wyverns Honour and Pycha respectively. Constance as usual soared alongside them on Tulpar.

They were already taking to the air as Byleth and Edelgard shouted out the outline of the groups' orders. There was no time to waste. 

  
  


***

_ I love urban combat.  _

Not many people would think that way, El guessed, but when you relied on a balance of quick wits and careful planning, the terrain could be your friend in a way that the open fields, regimented trees and confined battlements of the outdoors couldn't match. She loved the countryside for pleasure, having been confined in one grand building in one magnificent city or another for her entire life, much of it truly confined whether that was the dark, dank cells that had housed the experiments that killed her brothers and sisters, the grandiose, luxurious but definitive prison that had held the Imperial family in a sham of royalty or the bare bones of memory that persisted from another place, she couldn't recall where, as a smaller child - safer and with buried fondness in the reaches of her mind but still locked away. A refuge was a prison, just with a different celler. 

But for war, Edelgard would fight every battle in a city if she could. Buildings created cover even for Wyverns that any intelligent solder could use, and so many of their foes (and allies, but none she had thought worthy to bring here) seemed to lose their flexibility of thinking in violence, whether that was through panic, emotion or regimentation of action designed to protect against the other two. 

The Black Eagles, however, thought on the wing. And adapted to change without thought too, but the key was if you were the attacker you didn't stop to do your thinking. Defence - fall back of make small advances slowly and keep your lines as unyielding but as fluid as the uninvadable sea, always in tiny motion. Attack - be as hard to pin down and as mobile as fire on the wind. Once she had heard her sensei posed a question by a knight of Seiros looking to catch her out: when instinct kicks in and you have to let your body lead, did she fall back onto flight or fight as a response? 

Byleth had looked flatly at the man, and said without inflection "I don't see why one wouldn't choose both."

Some had thought this was a cop out, refusing to pick or saying that the situation where you needed to be saved by your unconscious responses could always be avoidable. But Edelgard had seen the true meaning, revealed in the light of pure admiration she had developed for the young mercenary by then. You moved away from the danger and attacked it at the same time, always. Flight and fight were the same thing and since then Edelgard had seen every retreat as a possible counterattack, a dodge and riposte. That was how skilled swordsmen saw it, so why was a general any different? Your blade was your army, your squad, your battalion. If you were Edelgard, your Empire. She had forgotten that philosophy until Byleth returned, relied on stasis to keep her surrounded Empire safe, but now it was clear that was foolishness. Stasis had been her enemy from the very start. From now on, whatever move she made, it would be a move. 

That philosophy applied to enemies as well, and so it would do well to be wary of Von Riegan. He was probably at his most dangerous as he fled for his life. 

Right now though, Edelgard's heart sang as she soared past towers, dodging arrows and spells and swooping down in her lethal dance to cut down anyone along her route with her battleaxe, dancing with graceful partners in the sky pirouetting around her. She trusted the other units to fulfil their tasks, she and hers would cage the Master Tactician and break the Alliance resistance in one move. She dodged a ballista strike with consumate ease, using the movement of her strafing in the sky to dip over a squad of soldiers in combat with Sylvain's battalion, a flick of her heel seeing Nightstorm lash out with his tail to send a line of them sprawling off their horses as she left a tomahawk deep in the skull of their leader, the movement in the air placing an irresistible spin on the weapon that led to unstoppable pace. To her left, Constance split an approaching lightning bolt, letting it rain vivid blue death on enemies to either side of her. Byleth crossed paths with them both, cutting across, and sprayed the ground with eerie green flames. Their course deviated, unpredictable lines that no sniper or intercepting sky-warrior could target, but their progress, their terrifying momentum towards the heart of the city, that only hastened. 

***

She had no idea now how the rest of the battle was going. Shortly they'd take to the air to get a bird's eye view and help whoever needed support the most but for now she relied on a general's least utilised but most vital tool. Trust. 

For now, this fight was between her squad and Claude Von Riegan.

Constance had drifted aside for a moment, aiding someone somewhere with deadly strikes of electricity. The Bolting spell, making her deadly as far as her eye could see. Leonie and Petra were peppering Claude's reinforcing guards from the sky, cutting them off from their beleaguered lord. Byleth and Ferdinand flew beside her, a triangular cage that he wouldn't avoid. 

Even knowing that he would be desperate to kill or trap her today, Claude was a true pragmatist. If things were hopeless, he'd run and she couldn't afford that even if she pinned his fleet here. The part of the plan she was confident in: Lindhart and Annette had planned to conjure a storm of wind, lightning and ice together that both were sure would make setting sail impossible as long as they maintained it, and any Wyvern rider taking to the air in its vicinity would need a deathwish too, so the only way for the Almyrans to head was aground and either to lay low or risk the waiting arrows of Shamir and Bernie's archers. And Lysithea, though they may not realise how dangerous a storm that seemingly innocuous little cloaked figure was yet. Anyone who tried to cross the threshold she guarded would soon see. Or not, she guessed, at least not for long. 

This one Wyvern was still a problem though.

On the back of Maria, for that was what the albino sky lizard was named, Claude could fight (and with Failnaught part of his final trio, that was a legitimate option - storming him so fast would have achieved nothing if she now flew straight into an unerring shaft from that enchanted weapon, or if he won a position to use its Falling Star technique and kill her and Nightstorm together), fly or both. So she had to keep moving, shepherding him and his magnificent beast (he had once joked that he should call her Edelgard, as she was careful, white with red eyes, cold-blooded and unstoppable in her rage. She hadn't laughed, and knew the comment had barbs, but accepted the compliment in there as well. Maria was a worthy creature) to where he couldn't escape or focus purely on her, but never rashly. 

To that end, Ferdinand now moved higher, circling the perimeter, ready to strike if Claude fled. Edelgard wasn't sure what the right word for her own approach was - stalking in the air, like a falcon fixed on its prey but not ready to dive. Surely such a term existed? Byleth, on pegasus-back and thus possessing more agility but less outright speed, kept drifting to try and force a perpendicular angle between herself, Edelgard and their quarry. 

_ Which way are you going to go, Von Riegan? _

He would have to act soon, the longer this prelude took, the better situated the three of them would be, penning him down into the range of archers and mages as they became available, back towards the stronghold he had launched from, trapping him against the masonry and driving him back inside. They would also likely have reinforcements, whether Constance, Petra or Leonie overcame their foes first, and four would surely be too many to make a break against. 

If Claude was going to act, it would surely have to be now.

_ What will you do? Flee, fight or feint? _

With reflexes like a viper and the mercurial speed of deer breaking for cover, suddenly Claude was rocketing, a slight waver sending Ferdinand on Honour circling the wrong way for a second. All he needed. He blazed towards Edelgard, a half-aimed distracting shot arced at Byleth not to force her to move but to draw her watchful gaze for long enough to hit his target, the only person he could end this battle by slaying. Her. Edelgard. 

***

She had called it as soon as she saw him make that little dummy. Claude would do what was necessary. But given the choice between killing (and risking death) or trying to take the non-violent way, it was clear what he would pick. The shot he fired at her now was aimed at her Wyvern's wing and not unexpected, so she pulled her steed up and to the left sharply, letting it pass harmlessly. Creating a little room for Claude who, as predicted, didn't steer towards her to attack but suddenly plummeted down and kept hurtling forward, a deep direct swoop below her to escape the trap and try to either regroup and use his range from a less encircled position or make a run for it. 

Instead he hurtled into another missile. 

Before her own Wyvern had even finished banking up to dodge the arrow, Edelgard had already made her move, casting herself off Nightstorm like an eagle. Diving down, she had timed it perfectly, tackling him off his steed and leaving her riderless and confused. She wrapped her arms tight around his sides, pinning them to his body and keeping him helpless as they both fell like stones towards the fast-approaching ground. 

He screamed, not the accusations of craziness she had expected but raw wordless fear. An apt reaction. He should have had more faith though. 

Suddenly their careening drop evened out, caught in a net of air as Edelgard gave a rare smile and looked to her side. Byleth, on her luminous steed, flew gently with them as she eased their cushion of magically held wind to the ground. And Claude, all credit to him, didn't curse or faint or try to stab her in the back. He just gave the biggest grin she had ever seen. "Alright, Edelgard, you got me. I surrender."

***

  
  


_ For all his tricks, how I wish all my enemies could be Claude.  _

He had quickly stopped the remaining combat, telling his people exactly when enough was enough. It had been for the best anyway. The Almyrans were mostly trapped upon their boats, their leader Hader driven away by the sharp eye and stinging volleys of Bernadetta Von Varley. The town was mostly under Empire control already, and Hilda lay bleeding out in Marianne's arms as the latter cradled her head and wove soft light over her wounds. It had been a good idea her fighting Hilda after all, not only mending the burns and deep stab she had inflicted herself and sparing someone Edelgard didn't want to let die, but also healing the incapacitating blows the dangerous Alliance warrior had inflicted on Caspar and Lorenz. But why was she weeping and smiling at the same time, and stroking Hilda's hair? 

Actually, no need to ask that. Obviously Marianne had had another secret, and a sweet one at that. Though El had thought Claude and Hilda were a pair?

They could sort that out between the three of them. She had more pressing questions for Claude first.

***

"So, you're saying you already have a document ready to send out, in the case of your defeat, to all your lords yielding the Alliance to Adrestia? You prepared for this too?"

He just grinned, not at all the picture of a man who had just lost a war. Well, the first part of a war. "Hey, what can I say? When you had Teach on your side (why she picked you, I'll never understand) this outcome was far from unlikely, and I'm not going to sacrifice Alliance lives pointlessly out of pride. You see, Edelgard, some of us don't think you can use lofty aspirations and a noble goal to justify violence."

That was a barb, and one she had earned. Sothis knew that Edelgard had wondered herself whether her path was the only one for many a night, but doubt was poison to ambition, death to success. She had made her peace with her choices. 

No. She hadn't, really. But she had gone over every argument with herself over many years and always reached the same conclusion. This aim to change the world, to better it, couldn't have been achieved without blood, and she was confident she had kept it to as little as possible. 

She let it pass. "And your noble goal was to unite Fodlan free from the Church as well. But you had some magic way to take care of our overlords, I guess? Or were you going to convince an ageless sorceress who thinks she's a god and acts with all the impunity of one, who executes people for calling the teachings she knows to be false as wrong, that she ought to step down for everyone else's sake? Seiros, or Rhea, doesn't believe she can make mistakes. She would have resisted any change your could make with the blood of all of Fodlan, protected by others defending her in their blind fanaticism to her lies."

She stared at the emerald of his gaze. "You needed me to take care of her before executing your fictional guiltless coup. Your ambitions are built on and reliant on my own, so it's very easy to take all the credit for the ideas of liberty but pass the burden of all the blood onto me." His cheeks did colour at that. "I would have taken the burden of one person's blood. Only Rhea, if anyone, needed to fall, and that can be arranged in ways other than outright war, Edelgard." 

"Yes, well we tried the more focussed approach and in the end it turns out that an angry dragon isn't that easy to kill. I'm not sure poison in her tea would have cut it." That shut him up. "And then she's built up a religion of devoted followers, it's not as easy as just removing

B her from power. Half of Fodlan believes in her web of deceit. More importantly, it's not over even when the Church cedes. Just in case anything happens to me, I need to tell you about They Who Slither In The Dark."

She did that, concisely but making sure she didn't miss any important points. Claude was silent, showing how seriously he took the situation, quietly nodding as aspects of their nation's history and recent events made more sense in the context of a secret war between two ancient factions. She never felt more angry, more powerless than when she revealed to someone how their entire species, all of their nations, were just pawns in a long game of bloody chess. 

Byleth listened too, some of this new to her, none of it old. Drinking it all in. Her attention made El feel good in a way she couldn't define. She was going to have to get used to embracing her feelings - making herself vulnerable even to herself went against her predisposition, but much like Marianne, she had to learn to change.

  
  


"So, if I had fallen today, you would have had what you wanted. You were, and are, my contingency plan, as long as I could trust Hubert to obey me and deliver you all the information we've gathered instead of a dagger or deathspell in the back."

Claude laughed heartily at that "Ah, Edelgard, you were my back up plan too!" , and Byleth used the interruption to calm things further, gently pushing the two apart. She was the only other person here, as two leaders stood and bargained over Fodlan's future next to the Roundtable, the sign of equal rulership that had always been a deceit of sorts. Edelgard hoped she could make that dream of the Alliance, of truly equal representatives of a people deciding things together rather than different variations of one noble with an inherited role herding the goats of similar nobles who had been born with a hair less power, true. "Claude." Byleth said gently. "You could have treated with Edelgard five years ago, when you both knew your goals. You didn't because you feared rebellion from half your lords, but you still chose not to. Some of this is on you. Now help us to fix it. Join us, not just your nation but you. Moon knows you're a smooth talker. Maybe you can talk Dimitri down and leave Rhea exposed."

He shook his head, sadly. "Dimitri won't be talked into treating with any of us, Teach, not now. And sadly I'm tired of war and I have things I need to sort in Almyra. If you need me later on, I can help against these Agarthans you've told me about. If you fall, I'll finish what you started - but for that to be viable, I have to stay out of everything for now. It works best for both of us politically for me to be the defeated neutral party in exile, not a new ally for our foes to target. And I'll be building up my forces - the Empire was never a possible target for my Almyran support, they share no sea border and getting them up through the Throat would turn every lord here against me and still leave me miles from enemy territory. But the Kingdom, well that has a nice coastline to land on. Speaking of which, let's get to the fun bit of business. My terms for surrender."

*** 

They had been agreeable terms. Claude had handed over the entire Alliance, making it clear that every lord supporting him should follow the Empire for now. Not all would willingly, but it was enough that those who supported her would have all the control for now, and Edelgard planned to make it clear that she had no intentions of kerbing regional independence. As long as the broad laws she had created were followed and the ordinary people empowered, quite the opposite in fact. And that wasn't something she would negotiate on. Claude's surrender handed Holst's loyalty straight to her, and even Judith, though unhappy, had agreed to aid the Empire on his (unofficial) command. Most importantly, he swore not to bring Almyra against her, meaning she could bring her full might against Dimitri, Faerghus and Seiros. Crush them then align with Claude and his allies against Thales. 

In return, she would bring Claude's dream into her own vision of the future. They would collaborate to open up Fodlan to free trade and free movement with Almyra, forming a mutually beneficial union between peaceful and cooperative but independent counties, aiming to overcome the distrust that Seiros stoking nationalism and obsession over bloodlines had formed over centuries. Distrust that Claude himself had seen in action, being Half-Almyran and that being a huge barrier to his interaction with many Alliance nobles. 

Edelgard had decided that if they were doing that, with reciprocal rights to Fodlan in other countries as well, naturally, then she may as well open the same rights and opportunities to their other neighbours, Dagda and Brigid. The latter would cease, she hoped, to be a vassal state, and would flourish as their newest ally, secured with trust not hostages. 

Technically this all remained secret, but somehow (she suspected Claude - in many respects it was a political victory for him, and for her if she let it spread in the right way. As a liberator and progressive, not a conqueror. People would try and make it a negative though) it seemed to have slipped out. 

She first discovered this when she was wandering through the citadel towards the roof top, restless despite their victory and looking to soothe her frantic mind by staring at the inextinguishable hope and never-ending peace of the stars. To drink in the purple sky, wine for the soul, and use their place in the sky, a perfect illustration of the paradox of time, mutable and fixed, all-powerful and fragile, to help her anchor herself to the present. To live for this vibrant moment, still alive with her dream still alive, and not drown in the sea of a cruel past that still forced her path and a foggy future that filled her with anxiety. Past and future, both outside of her control in a dreadful, almost divine manner, and thus panic inducing. 

That gravity, that awesome severity that assaulted her, was shattered however when she was struck by a laughing, scurrying pair. Petra, giddier than the child she had been when El first met her, wrapped her in her arms and hugged her, an act nobody had deigned or dared to perform since she was a tiny girl. "Thank you, thank you, thank you…". In a state of shock, Edelgard nearly collapsed when Petra kissed her cheek, the earnest kiss of a true friend who was truly grateful. Her partner, a grinning Dorothea whose tone and eyes revealed more than a little wine in her blood, a revelation Edelgard realised was repeated in the fire on Petra's cheeks, explained. "She heard you promised Claude to free Brigid, to give them back their pride. I've never seen her happier. Well, for now at least." Her hand was, with no shame from either of them, flush on Petra's ample seat. Edelgard said it was all far from formalised and made her excuses as Petra gave a much less friendly kiss to Dorothea, the two progressing, as she swiftly retreated, to the precipice of love-making right there in the corridor.

The entire city knew the war was far from over, the least bitter of all their enemies relinquishing his battle and more hateful foes to come. They knew that as soon as tomorrow or the day after they would have to move on, return to their base and start the next campaign, never stopping, flying and fighting, until it was done. They were reminded by the Adrestrian troops who marched around the city, never aggressive or imposing (Edelgard had stated calmly that anyone treating their vanquished opponents with anything less than deep respect would answer to Hubert, a sure guarantee of their good behaviour) but just enough to ensure that Claude, who did have a reputation after all, didn't double-cross them. But tonight, the relief of victory without killing too many old friends had been too much to ignore, and that greatest of all aphrodisiacs, life after staring death in the face, a reminder of everything that was good about being alive and young and pretty, was in full effect. Romance was in the air, and around every corner she ran into people coupling off and sometimes coupling. The rich Leicester reds and fire-brandies helped, and more than one liaison saw Alliance retainer with Imperial soldier, signs of coercion absent. 

It all left her rather wistful and confused, another reason she sought the solitude and solace of the stars. And envious. She had left Claude in the feasting hall in spectacular spirits for one who had just lost a war, getting increasingly close to both Hilda and Marianne, so many hands on thighs that Edie had no idea whose was whose. Hubert and Ferdie had vanished with alacrity and Bernie and Felix had finally melted into each other's mouths whilst Sylvain watched torn between sending them jealous glares and getting closer and closer to Mercedes, who seemed similarly in two minds between throwing herself between a dancing Annette and Caspar and at throwing herself at Sylvain. 

_ There's no accounting for taste, I guess, or decisiveness. We really are an incestuous crew.  _

_ Not literally. Not yet, anyway. _

Even Jeritza and Coco were deep in conversation and each other's eyes. Which left Edelgard, a flower who had been watered with loneliness, who had built it into her roots, and who was surrounded by as many happy friends who loved her as she had ever been in her entire life, feeling a deep loneliness that she almost couldn't bear. 

  
  


That was why she fled to the observatory.

That was why she sought the dark and the stars.

*** 

Stars. They were so perfect, a tapestry of time and space mapped out on a background of sable. How jealous the glowing moon, so bright and big but truly so much less than them, must be. 

She sank into the view, the gateway to infinity. The portrait of true creation, not some petty whim of a goddess long gone or never-was, but nature and physics and maybe a little magic all weaving together to show man his physical insignificance and his spiritual consequence all at once. 

Nothing resonated so strongly with her. People thought she was cold but she loved many things with a passion she could not show them. Good food, ice-wine from Hresvelg. Music of all sorts. The mountains. Bears, especially stuffed toy ones. Clever games and wit and poetry. Bergamot. Flowers, especially red ones. But nothing touched her like the night sky. Made her feeling so reassuringly small, like she didn't have to be important any more. Like the universe could move on without her, lifting all the weight and pressure and expectation, even that which came from her. 

The stars didn't judge and they also didn't care about her. She wasn't an Emperor here, just a girl contemplating eternity. 

***

"I thought you might be out here."

That loneliness suddenly transformed to longing at the sight of her in the starlight. Gazing at Edie from the stairwell with the intensity of dragonfire, Byleth looked like she belonged up here. Out there, amongst the other stars. 

"Oh! It's you, Professor. I was certain it was Hubert coming to drag me back to my duties."

She jested, trying to shake off the turmoil inside her. She was so inflamed by the same passions that had captured her classmates, the thrill of the fight and the thrill of life, and inflamed by watching the same classmates in the stages of romance, anywhere between flirting and heated looks, all the way up to unabashed rutting. She had come here to give up control, but now it scared her, because she was so close to giving up control over her own emotions and body, and this woman was the greatest possible test. And looking at her like she was all she had ever needed, leaving her heart hammering in her chest.

She could feel the attraction now, sure for the first time that Byleth felt more for her than a prize student or dear friend.

Panicking, she joked further, cringing inside but unable to stop.  _ Where is my infamous composure, my restraint?! _

"Your Majesty, you must know your supreme talents are needed at present. Why not gaze at these documents instead of the sky?"

Well, her Hubert impression was fairly good. A thought mirrored by Byleth, a rare smirk on her face. 

That lightening of the tension left her feeling a little better, and ready for some sincerity. 

"While I have your attention, I'd like to thank you for your help in that last battle. As you well know, I'm perfectly capable of commanding the army by myself."

She was rambling again. 

"However, when you're around, it's somehow different. I'm not sure I can properly explain it. I suppose your perspective on the battlefield is simply sharper than mine. When you're devising tactics and tricks for us, it's almost as though you can read the enemy's mind. There's no getting around it. Your talent for strategy far exceeds my own. I'm quite jealous in all honesty."

There. Honesty, the first time she had voiced an insecurity since she had decided to become the weapon the Agarthans wanted to make her into but with no handle for them to grasp. Since she had decided her own destiny. 

  
  


Byleth was silent for a moment and Edelgard wondered if she had ruined everything - by trying to defuse this tense moment had she stripped the atmosphere between them? Killed off the romantic spark she had felt?

Then: "You have many talents that I lack. Sometimes, I'm jealous of you too. You think too little of yourself, Edie. You are wonderful, truly, and today it was you that won the day."

She blushed. "Edie. It still feels an odd name to me, though I don't dislike it. A friendly nickname, started by Thea. Not the kind of name I ever expected to be called, but then it's still a mild surprise finding I have friends. I didn't expect my path to lead me to that either."

"Of course you have friends, Edelgard. I'm your friend, too, if you'll have me."

With every phrase they stepped closer to each other, drawn like moths to the light of their spirits. Closing the emotional distance with the physical in the obtuse riddle of their words, another parodox: so irrelevant to the ear but Edelgard listened with her heart now and heard the invite, the welcoming there. 

"Friends... That word somehow doesn't seem adequate. Besides, we've been friends for a long time, you and I. By now, we're so much more than that, at least in my mind. You know...instead of Edelgard, or "Edie", you can call me just El. If you so please."

She was within touching distance now, emotionally too. She had never invited another soul to use her father's old pet name for her.

*That's what my parents and closest sisters used to call me when I was little. Now there's no one left who calls me El... But with you, well...I think I could allow it. In fact, it would mean a great deal to me."

"Why is that?" Byleth's voice was a whisper, but devoid of harshness. The susurration of the gentle sea breeze. Her words a challenge, but a loving one. A freeing one.

"Why? I don't know how to say it. We are family in some ways, bound by fate and Crests, but even more by choice. I guess, it's because I care for you. About you. What you think. I see you as close to me as I've let anyone in my life since those sisters died."

She touched her hand, cold and hot all at once in the revealing light of the candid stars, the knowing night. It sent quakes through her that shattered her resolve, her walls and left her open and vulnerable and gloriously, painfully alive. 

_ This is what life feels like.  _

"Say my name, please."

It seemed the fresh wind of the sea and the stars themselves joined in with the chorus, the name breaking from Byleth's lips, now the focus of El's whole world, like a sign. A lover's sigh, the one that comes after you hold each other, when you soothe her after a nightmare or die the little death together. The sound of a soul talking to its other half. 

"El…"

She couldn't take any more. The power of that name, that felt like her true name, it gave Byleth power over her but also El power over herself. Let her be someone she hadn't allowed herself to be since her family had been broken and taken from her. She let herself deserve to be El again, to let someone else be strong for her and love her. 

Her eyes were wet, as she made a statement. Not an order, for she couldn't find it in herself to give Byleth another command now that she had obeyed the last one so fully. This was the one person she could trust herself not to order and grant herself the gift of impotence. 

"I need you to kiss me, if you want."

And the whole light of the stars exploded in her heart as those lips, that world, met her own.


	8. Bleeding lily

When their lips finally pulled apart, an eternity later under the ageless, voyeuristic stars, El stared breathless into her mentor's face. The intensity in her eyes both thrilled and frightened her, promising sweet oblivion together lost in each other whilst the world, set on fire by others but the flames fanned by the two of them, burned around them. 

El had wanted this so much for so long but tonight she needed it: a respite from the pressures on her; from being the leader; from reflecting on what she had done, was doing and still had to do. The soft, warm escape of a body, something she had wished she had wanted but hadn't actually truly desired, called to her stronger than ever, but more so she needed this one person who set her soul ablaze and who made her feel safe for the first time since well dressed men had marched into her room and taken her away from her father for reasons she couldn't then understand.

She didn't even know she had that memory, had no idea where it had come from, but the melancholia now threatened to surge into her, so she drove it away with the passion in Byleth's eyes, the feel of her arms that had snaked around to the small of her back. 

"You have no idea how long I've wanted to do that," Byleth's voice was smoky and strung with emotion.  _ Well, that's gratifying to see so obvious an impact on our great stoic. _ "Apparently it's inappropriate to lust after your students though. Then I was waiting for you to make your move, given how decisive you are. But I should have realised that was unfair."

El had half-collapsed against the wall, meaning Byleth leant into her, bringing their bodies, already drawn together almost irresistibly, so tightly onto each other that El could envisage her general's as her own. The chill of the night was blown away by the warmth seeping from between them, the cold air irrelevant when every breath passed from one to the other. 

El needed more, needed to turn this night into a sweet celebration of victory and life rather than another self-imposed jail of isolation. But she needed, in ways she couldn't articulate, Byleth to take the lead. To take her. To have it set in stone and undeniable that her idol wanted this, that it wasn't some duty or reward or about El in any way. That she was wanted and loved, more than a useful tool or someone obeyed because harmless traditions and hypocritical holy laws and the entitlements of blood passed one said so. That she had worth in her own right, as a person and not an action. Edelgard had been an action for so long, never stopping the plotting or training or striving, that she had forgotten how to be a person, fragile and frozen in a moment of shared time. Had refused passivity, refused to ever be allowed to be the victim again, such that receiving any affection from another terrified her. But tonight, to this person, she could surrender and rediscover El. And El had a future after this war that Edelgard simply did not, which frightened her even more. 

She couldn't act, frozen by fear but also by some tiny part of her that knew she mustn't, that she had to trust Byleth to free her from the shackles she was bound in, of self-doubt, of responsibility, of everything she had been made into and made herself into that she had never ever wanted. 

Something in her eyes must have shown this struggle, because Byleth's fierce gaze softened and she held her hands protectively. "El," she would never tire of hearing that name on those lips, lips that spoke straight to her essence in words and deeds, "what's wrong? What would you like to do next?"

_ I can't say it outright. I can't.  _

She wasn't entirely sure why, because it wasn't one simple reason, but so much of what had frozen her now and for so long, with added shame of admitting what she really wanted. That the strong, imperious Emperor Edelgard Von Hresvelg wanted and needed to feel weak, to be commanded. 

She managed to give a hint though, her iron will flexing enough space through her fetters to speak and to make her body language more receptive. Pliant. Fighting her body's every instinct, everything it had been forced to learn against its very nature. 

"What do want me to do and what to do to me?" She shivered with anticipation as she said the words. 

The heat was back in the other's stare. "I want to do so much to you, but I don't want to do anything you aren't comfortable with…" 

Sweet, and for once someone was asking her to interact, to embrace as equals not with Edelgard making all the decisions and being dominant. Maybe next time that would be enough, just having a peer, but not now. She needed to give up everything, to lose herself to the helplessness, the significant insignificance she felt beneath the stars, to cede to something greater than her. 

She found candour, somehow, from deep within, after a battle much harder than hers had been with Judith or Claude.

"Whatever you ask of me, I don't think I'll find it within me to say no, or not to want. Tonight and maybe forever."

There it was! Her soul and her cravings both bared as flagrantly as she possibly could! She felt the fire on her cheeks, her blood now mulled wine, as hot and as spiced and as muddling. She was more naked now than she had been in a bed surrounded by hardworking lovers who had left her cold. More aroused and needy than she had been as those nymphs and studs pleasured her in those nights where she sought solace from the pain and cold and emptiness within, before she had abandoned the thought of feeling good, of any joy deeper than satisfaction at finally achieving her task. Emptiness that had been filled with exquisite, consuming light when Byleth came back. 

Her whole body and heart was an open wound, tender and raw and more vulnerable than she had suffered to be since… back then. 

Byleth's eyes shone now.  _ She understands, or nearly does. She always does, somehow, knowing us all like her children, caring for us like a mother.  _

It was not a maternal attention that El desired now.

"El, I'm not sure that feeling is entirely healthy." A final check, still not giving her what she wanted but everything about her, tone, face and looming, powerful body all said she was on the brink now. 

"It's not. But it's what this me needs for now."

And with that the dam burst. 

Byleth's mouth was searing on her neck, hard enough to mark and she could only cry for joy as she gripped the rump of her saviour, her Queen of Liberation. Her lover and her love. 

She yielded to Byleth's hands and mouth as they felt her all over, blissful pressure on her back, her collar, her rear. With incredible, exciting ease, the powerful warrior lifted her into her arms, carrying her like a bride as she continued to kiss El's lips with a growing ferocity that stole all her breath. As she carried El, blessedly helpless and helplessly needy, down a flight of stairs, she pointed out how this would look. "Anyone could see us now, you in my arms like a damsel in distress. They'll talk."

El pouted. "I don't care. I want them to know how I feel about you, they are going to see us together anyway, and you could equally be my obedient soldier carrying me on demand. Only we will know otherwise. Will know that once you take me into your room, you can have me any way you like and I'll beg you for more, beg you to let me please you. But if they did know the truth, let them think what they will. They'll soon find I bend over for only one person."

Byleth just chuckled, and manhandled her through the corridors. They didn't actually pass anyone else, though it was clear from the sounds of the rooms they passed that they weren't alone in their intentions. 

They arrived at the quarters Byleth had requisitioned after the battle, the door latching magically lifting (some spell by the woman herself, El assumed) as she booted it open then tossed El onto the bed as if she weighed nothing. 

_ How strong is she?! I _ n fairness, despite her diminutive stature, El could probably have done the same, but she was used to being unique and being handled so easily by her lover, seeing her in all her might, like a warrior queen of legend, her simple blue dress barely concealing her powerful thighs and rippling shoulders. Then, commanding her with her eyes as El lay submissively on the bed just as she had been thrown, aware of steam between her legs but knowing she wouldn't touch anything to release the building pressure unless Byleth requested it, Byleth removed all the concealment. 

She pulled the dress over her head and flung it aside with a ravenous urgency that made El feel so desired, so powerful in a new way despite her utter passive surrender, ripping aside her supporting stays. She stood utterly bare, assertive, inviting El to stare at the sight she had dreamed of more than once. The body language was a lioness about to assert her dominance and take her prey, with the natural beauty and poise of the deer, pure elegant motion paused into a picture of oxymoronic, ultimate rest. Her face, proud nose and regal stare, though, was a queen eagle surveying what was hers. El was hers and they both knew it and embraced it. 

El didn't decline the invite, her long-yearning eyes drinking in the glorious sight. It was hard to believe that someone could be so soft and so hard at once. The fertile curves of her wide hips and lush breasts contrasting with the hard ripples of her abdomen and the sculpted muscles of her shoulders, running down to her hidden back. Her legs were pillars of pale stone tapering to fine ankles with muscular, toned calves, her arms knots carved of whitewood. Then her eyes glanced and froze over those most intimate secrets: large aurioles that were shockingly dark, peaked with magnificent little ruby crowns; and the low-cut curling forest that hid her innermost sanctum. El noticed that fittingly it was as verdant as the locks on her head. 

She couldn't have encapsulated goddess of war and fertility together any more if she'd been surrounded by rays of heavenly light and attending serving girls and warriors. El would have to manage to be both for her woefully underworshipped deity. 

"I know what you've said, but if you want me to stop, say 'Enbarr' at any point and I will. Otherwise, anything you want from me you'll have to beg for."

That melted her, sending floods of pleasure and wetness through her groin.

The atmosphere was heated up by the chorus around them, both rooms either side of them full of amorous noises. As El watched captivated at Byleth crawling up to her in the bed, her skin burning with anticipation and her chest heaving, eyes mesmerised by the sway of her lover's breasts and the radiant dawn shining in her eyes, her ears couldn't help but latch onto the unmistakable sounds of fucking around them. Moans and laughs in the low and high tones of men and women on one side, more than one of each it seemed though it was impossible to tell through the walls and with the mixing of sounds, and the metronomic squeak of moving bed and intermingled animalistic grunting and whimpering on the other, it all drove El madder and madder for a releasing touch. Byleth was right on top of her now, so effortlessly powerful, an aura of strength and will that El thought might have melted her icy walls and driven her into her submissive core hidden within even if she'd never adored this woman as her sensei. With a strange forceful delicacy Byleth stripped El as she leant over her conquest, quickly leaving her starkly exposed and staring into her perfect face. Soaking between her legs, which burst into fire as Byleth pressed a commanding thigh between them, pressure right over her sensitive apex.

Everything else in the world vanished. Every doubt, fear and plan. The sounds outside. The knowledge of where they were. El's world was now her boiling body and the goddess blessing it: the sound of both their quickening breath, quick and shallow and rasping; the gorgeous, incredible work of art that was Byleth's face and body, a beauty El couldn't imagine any person, man or woman, ignoring; the heat from her skin and the incensing touch of her leg at her crux and of her hands on El's shoulders; and the two scents on the air, filling her lungs as she drank them in like life-giving air, the same rich aroma of unadorned woman who had worked hard, clean but pungent, that had almost broken her reserve when they had sparred, subtly unique so that El could now bottle it away and label it "Byleth" - and the embarrassing scent she recognised as hers, leaking from her legs. 

Then Byleth's mouth started its work, marking and claiming her all over with hard sucks and gentle kisses and dominant bites, flags to declare this territory all hers.  _ It is yours, my dear. I never want to share my body with another.  _ El realised she was moaning, crying out unconsciously, and neither wanted to nor found herself able to stop. Her sensitive nipples and handful breasts were engulfed and embraced by the soft quilt of Byleth's own, comforting and erotic at once. Her warrior queen's leg started to press and jiggle and sent thunder magic sparking across her body, from groin to head and everything between. Two aggressive lips and a hungry tongue latched and lapped at one of her nipples and fire magic burst through her breast and chest and spread down her loins to her centre. Hands kneaded her backside, skirted around then teased her back passage and filled her vision and mind with dazzling light, then the lips on her teat became teeth, biting not hard enough to draw blood but to draw a cry, not entirely of pain but of desperation and fulfillment all at once. This was what she needed and she needed more.

She received it, Byleth giving her everything whilst giving her no say. Soon her strong, dextrous fingers were within her, driving her ecstasy in no time, owning her inside and out, scoping out every inch of Byleth's new territory. Then she invaded her newly scouted domain with her tongue and Edelgard screamed, obliterating herself until only El was left in the bed, free from everything, free from five years of yearning sexual tension and a decade or more of other stress. She embraced it, her little death, born a new woman.

She was salivating by the time Byleth "forced" her to repay the favour, grinding her face into her sopping, fragrant vulva as El ate away like her life depended on it, savoring the zesty, mildly tart flavour she hoped to sample again and again, rejoicing at an essential level when her mentor crescendoed and climaxed under her mouth, hands holding her tight there, grunting and murmuring her name. 

She wanted more, still, but they had a long journey ahead and there would be plenty of time on the campaign and hopefully, if they succeeded, for the rest of their lives thereafter, to fully explore each other, physically and deeper, and to explore this side of herself that she had only just let out from where she had buried it deep. She was hasty in her desires but back in control, with no need to rush. For now, she just enjoyed the feeling of security and release wrapped in the strong arms of the woman she loved, the woman behind her cocooning her from the future. 

They both fell into slumber, but sadly for El that meant an end to the bliss. Her dreams started a pleasant thing, full of Byleth and even a glimpse, the first one she had granted herself since she was very small, at a happy future. Soon they twisted and it became very clear that this healing act of sex hadn't cured El of all her trauma. She woke weeping after another nightmare about her poor tortured siblings, with Thales sneering at her from above over her father's broken body, whilst she was forced to watch her favourite sister, Gutrune, killed in front of her, held fast by Dimitri and Seiros the entire time. 

Suddenly the arms around her tightened and a soft voice whispered into her ear, soothing her.

"Hush, it's going to be alright, I'm here, I'm here." 

Byleth stroked her hair, cooing at her until she calmed down. "If you want me, I can always be here. You don't have to sleep and wake alone, and face the things you face alone, ever again."


	9. Plum bleeding through a golden sky

The rest of El's night was restful, as calm a sleep as she had had in years, and when she woke still wrapped in Byleth's arms, a sheen of sweat on them both, she felt… hopeful? Still tight, still focussed on the gargantuan task ahead of them but feeling that maybe there was something to live for after all this, as well as everything she was willing to die for. 

"Good morning, my liege." Most people wouldn't have believed that Byleth could be gently mocking, such was the image of focussed, imperturbable efficiency that she projected but El had known her well enough even before their bearing of hearts and bodies last night to know she was not only capable of it but would frequently joke in this deadpan way unsuspected. It was a jibe of affection, delivered softly into her ear in a way that set her hairs on end and warmed her belly. For she was Byleth's liege and the latter would obey any order given, but they both knew that El would never make demands outside of official business and that Byleth was utterly the master now when it came to their personal relationship. The knowledge of that did scare her a little, she was so used to the armour of authority, both a mental defence against her helpless past remembered self and a barrier to stop her getting close to people. It also made her feel free and safe and unburdened in a way she had never thought she could, as well as utterly giddy. She didn't need any shield against her, as she trusted her completely, had done long before that was rational, and it was far too late for walls - a part of her was already lodged in El's soul.

They lay there together, each a shelter to the storm waiting in the future, a seemingly never-ending fight against a stream of enemies.  **This** was peace, for El. The truest peace she had seen for decades. Apologists for the Church always claimed that Fodlan had been peaceful under its guidance, but even a glance at the histories, even the ones that had so obviously been doctored to anyone's eyes never mind the Hresvelgs who had passed on hidden information about the War of Heroes from generation to generation, belied that. The present, even to the most trusting of eyes, had belied that. There were rebellions against herself that Seiros had demonstrably quashed in an instant, sending her Knights, yes, or even children like El and her friends, but so many other uprisings, where other sources of power were weakened, she stood away from, washing her hands. She had allowed wars to strike up against each nation. Had let one unified nation split into three in two separate wars that she had fostered and fed. 

Peace was a lie. And El had personally never felt at peace, not since she had been sent away from her family because the Church didn't deign it prudent to intervene in politics unless someone said something that Seiros saw as defiant against  **her** power or her claims about religion. Since Duscur, a tragedy mishandled abhorrently, scarring poor Dimitri for life as hard as he fought to hide it, where the Saint's judgement had been harsh, hasty and beyond contestation, delivered through her unquestioning sword hand, Catherine.

Edelgard had been at war, had known that Fodlan itself had been at war for centuries whether it knew or not, since she was a child, a casualty of it, used as a political chip by their enemies in the Empire, into a child soldier and a weapon by group of sinister men who manipulated the world and then as a child soldier again by the apathetic ruler of Fodlan in all but name. She knew that They That Slither In The Dark were bringing the war to the surface-land, and that if it were fought that way they would win. She had just brought it out into the open.

So this feeling of peace was completely alien. This feeling of happiness, not just transient, fleeting joy but something pervasive, had been so forgotten by her body that she found herself shocked to feel it. The sensation of safety from Byleth's arms around her belly was a drug, strangely exhilarating in its comfort, of which El couldn't get enough. Gradually though, as they lay together, El felt a little tension build up in the muscles of her lover, a stiffening of her limbs and a change to her breathing. 

"Byleth, what's wrong?"

"Nothing is wrong as such. I'm just wondering where this leaves us, and what this makes me. I care about you a lot, and I don't want this to end, but we are in a war."

She turned to look at the angelic face that now looked at her with so much concern.  _ Those eyes _ . They bled compassion. She couldn't believe that at one point they had all doubted whether their professor had any emotions. Now she could bring herself to look at that beautiful face perfectly, that she wasn't scared that her feeling would overcome her and that her desires would be candid shown on her face - they still would, she was sure, but that was no longer a thing to fear, rejection hopefully now off the table - it was one of the most expressive she could imagine, the little changes and subtle signs as obvious to her now as weeping tears on anyone else. She was just more introverted in her interaction, more restrained in her countenance. Everything showed in those huge, shifting eyes.  _ I could die happy looking into them _ . 

"Well, I would say it leaves us as lovers, my dear, and hopefully more. Being in a war shouldn’t put us off that. After all, we may never get another chance. Any day could be our last, so why not do what we actually want in those days?”

She gave Byleth a peck on the cheek before drawing back and bursting into an insolent grin, unable to resist brazenly teasing her partner. “As for what it makes you, well, a young thing like you being caught looking like this in an Emperor’s bed… I would guess it makes you my paramour. Or possibly a concubine.” 

She ripped open with a deep laughter, from a hidden place within her, a laugh of raw mirth and delight rather than the dry humour and irony that had characterised almost every time she had laughed since she had been a child. It hurt, she laughed so much and so powerfully, and her throat so unprepared for the sound, an undignified cackle she was glad none of the others were here to witness, but she couldn’t help it. The affronted look on Byleth’s face, like a cat who had just suffered some deep indignity, that responsively erupted at El’s outrageous remark struck a spark within her.  _ She’s adorable _ . It was quickly replaced with a wry smirk though, as she playfully cuffed El across the head, a lazy lioness' swat. “I’m not sure that anyone privy to what happened would have said that I was the concubine, hearing you beg me to let you lick between my legs. I think who was above whom would have been very obvious in their minds. So, if you're an Emperor and you're my mewling little kitty, then what can that possibly make me? What's above an Emperor?" 

It was teasing, she knew, but El felt compelled to let Byleth know how she felt, to answer the question sincerely. 

"A goddess. You are, without pressure or expectation of perfection from me, like a goddess to me. One I'll worship with my adoring love and my obedient body. I'll even kill for you. Not for religious reasons though, just because I care about you and you are my friend." She gave a sad smile. "Killing for religion is the most insane thing a woman can do." 

She cuddled her goddess, holding her tight to her. "You are someone I need, not for my Empire, but for me. I think…" confessing to the world that she had been the Flame Emperor and the most hated person in Fodlan hadn't seemed half as hard as this felt, "you are someone I love. Am in love with. I don't ever want to live without you."

There, she had said it. Put her entire being out into the air, open and vulnerable and braced for rejection.  _ Was this too soon _ ? She had felt this way for years now, accepted it was how she felt when she lost Byleth and regained her, but their first romantic interaction beyond raw chemistry and hints and fantasies had been last night. When El had been thoroughly fucked, as Byleth said, pleading like an addict and moaning like a whore. Not the most gradual of ice-breakers, and she realised possibly not the romantic lead in to a declaration of love either. She was done with being dishonest to herself or this woman, but in doing so had she ruined any shot of something developing? If there were gods, she hoped that development was already there, because if not she had scared the professor away for good.

Byleth paused a moment then opened up into a beatific grin that made El's heart soar. "I don't know if I can say love yet, because my feelings for you are something I've never had before and are so complex that I struggle to even confront them. But I think I might, El, and you saying you might love me made me so bright and hot inside that I think it may confirm it. You will never lose me. I picked you, didn't I? Every time there was any choice? I will always pick you.”

El could scarcely believe it, her dreams seemingly coming true, once again her mentor the source of unexpected solace in a life she had anticipated and experienced to be pure fight and strife. One who had chosen to fight by her side, who might be the major reason that fight was currently just about going her way. If the gods did exist, what had El done to deserve such providence? Such relief after the cruel taunts of losing her?  _ If they exist, they play a complex, mocking game indeed, and their whims are as bad as the false gods’ obsessions and rigidities.  _

She kissed Byleth again, before resting their foreheads together, just enjoying the contact and the meaning of the words they had shared. After another infinite silence, the teal haired general spoke up again. “I do think however it might be best to focus on our feelings, on being close to each other spiritually and emotionally, before repeating last night. Otherwise, it was so addictive we may never have any time to truly explore each others’ souls. And the energy might better be used elsewhere whilst we are actively fighting and marching on campaign. We need rest, and time.” A flutter of panic went through El, stilled by the soothing caress of the woman who seemed able to read her like a book. “I’m not saying we won’t share our bodies again soon. Just, unless it’s as spontaneous and necessary as last night, maybe I’d feel less like some toy or temporary mistress if we made the focus something else?”

She had considered the impact that making the first move, from her position, might have and the statement it might make, but had never thought about how the very sexual nature of their relationship might make Byleth feel, without the protection that marriage granted her in the eyes of the law and the faith. Surely she knew that El didn’t make promises lightly, and didn’t give herself out at all, but El understood the niggling doubt. Her actions had probably reeked of fascination or childish infatuation for her teacher rather than the understanding of a longer, meaningful romance. Besides, what El wanted, needed after the release and the liberation of last night, was far more than physical right now, and it was reassuring that this was what her lover needed too. 

“I think that is perhaps wise. Why do you always have to be so right?” Another smile, “It’s my job, El. I’m frequently not right but I’ve spent a long time helping make sure that  **you** are, and I intend to keep doing so, even if I’m not your teacher any more.” 

El shook her head. “You may be many, many other things to me, my love, but you will always be my sensei.” She hesitated, scared of asking for more after the conversation they just had, but painfully aware that last night had been the best, and maybe the only truly refreshing, sleep she had received for years. “Byleth… even if we refrain from the… mixing of bodies… that last night saw, could you possibly…” Her partner smacked her forehead in exasperation at herself. “Oh of course, how insensitive. You want me to share your bed anyway? Always, I told you that I’d be there for you if you woke and you told me long ago what haunts you in your dreams. I think I’ve been a little protective of you ever since.” Gazing into El’s eyes, she grabbed her hand, sending a shock of comfort and safety rather than the lightning touch of desire it had transmitted not long ago. “In fact, an Emperor in a war needs a bodyguard. And any good bodyguard should defend you in your sleep from enemies inside and out. I swear to stay by your side and to protect you this day and always.” 

“Doesn’t a bodyguard usually have weapons on hand? I’m not sure even you could fit a sword in your cleavage, dearest.” A pout. “I can use magic, you know, El. The weapons can be for when we walk side by side or I cover you in battle - and trust me, I’m going to abuse this new self-appointed position to make sure you keep yourself much safer on the field as well - but if anyone tries to stab you in your sleep I will take great pleasure in burning them alive.”

The final phrase was spoken with such ardour and fury that El felt utterly glad to have Byleth on her side, and utterly flattered to draw such strong emotion out of her. Her new bodyguard’s grip was tight on her now, protective and just as welcome in its own way. 

She would have loved to have stayed a while to lie in her arms or upon her lap, to enjoy the feeling of being young and in love. Or to add to the night before and worship the incredible beauty lying next to her, swaddling her from behind. But she had to become, or pretend to be, Edelgard again and they had a war to fight that wouldn't wait for them and now two nations to govern. Still, her cheeks burned and she felt weak with delight as Byleth watched her step out of bed, nude, and wash in the cold basin nearby, glowing as her mentor showered her with compliments. She knew she had good features, like her trim tummy and her rump, even if she paled compared to Byleth, yet it was still edifying to hear it. She wasn't shy in return in watching Byleth, putting on a show for her with the casual confidence that El had always had to train into seeming natural, and fixing on the muscular globes of her rear and rippling back muscles.

As they helped dress each other, El couldn't help but they to dispell the confusion that her need to let Byleth take control had opened in her. "Byleth…" That heart-stopping, breath-freezing gaze locked onto her again, quizzical but warm. "We are going to have to find you a nickname too…" (She'd revealed in a class years ago that she'd never had one. Such names weren't unusual between mercenaries - and the fact that Byleth had been brought up as a travelling fighter since she was still a child was so easy to forget - but Byleth's eerie quietness and introspection seemed to dissuade people from giving her one) "You don't think that what I needed from you last night, giving up my control… do you think it makes me weak? Or that the others will think I'm weak?"

Suddenly those calloused, warrior's hands were on her shoulders and her love was looking down at her. "El, it's none of their business what we do in our spare time and what you like under the sheets. But anyone, including me, who ever thinks you are weak must be blind and stupid. Needing a rest from being strong and making decisions doesn't change that, and none of us, including me, have any idea of how much pressure is on you all the time, of what that authority must be like. Anyone who didn't want a break from it must be addicted to the power. I can be your break. Never think you are weak - for I know you are one of the strongest people I've ever met; determined, brave, stubborn and decisive. You are the leader your country needs." 

Tears were welling in El's eyes now and a tightness in her throat. "Thank you", she managed to croak out. "It's nothing. It's something I will always offer. I am always on your side, and if you feel less than the warrior queen you are, I can remind you of it, of why I admire you over anyone else. Now let's show this new nation of yours how strong you are."

Finally dressed, they left together and prepared to leave Leicester secure, loyal lords Ordelia and Gloucester joint regents and those loyal to Claude in hand with his clear instructions. 

First though, they stepped out into the fresh air to watch the lazy Eastern Sun bobble above the horizon. The short winter days of The Guardian Moon meant that even with their relatively late stirring the sun was just rising. Magnificently, on the first day of a slightly more unified Fodlan that had been forged with much less blood and death than El had feared. 

There was a dessert that she had loved as a child, sadly not in the list of meals the catering staff at Garreg Mach, which involved a honey-drenched, stewed Morflis plum and a float of rich yellow custard. The closest she had had for years was the currant Saghert they made, also beautifully sweet, but it lacked the visual beauty of the mingling plum juice in the custard, slowly spreading the deep purple hue along with the tart edge that balanced the sweetness and creaminess of the base. The sky reminded her of that now, a plum bleeding into golden skies. Another reminder of sensations from childhood she hadn't experienced since. A good day to be El again. 

They entered the food hall of the citadel, already busy, because some of their number were already on their way out.

Hilda was traveling with Claude to Almyra, promising a forlorn, tired looking Marianne that they would both be back for her if nothing else.

Lorenz was heading home to help his father shape the future of the new Leicester region of Grand Fodlan. Jeritza was heading out on a mission, one El and Hubert had planned a long time ago. They would see them all again as soon as things were set in motion, in Garreg Mach itself. 

El and her advisors would spend the next 2 weeks very busy, governing the Empire from afar as well as facilitating the changeover in Leicester. Lysithea and Marianne visited their families with El's permission, helping secure more ties here. Ferdinand, Caspar and Shamir led sorties to help spread the news of Claude's surrender and de-escalate pockets of resistance. There were still some rebels in place, just as there were in Adrestia, but fewer than El had expected and the begrudgingly loyal Von Daphnel and Goneril were already working to suppress any uprisings. The terms offered were generous and in many respects the lords of the Alliance had lost very little autonomy at all. It was her stance against the Church, and the rumours of her stance on nobility's future, that they wanted to resist, but few were foolish enough to do so now that most of the country had decided to cede. There would be problems later, for certain, but she trusted that Claude would help in that respect, as would Lorenz. Besides, once she took the other enemies out of the equation she'd leave no option but for the world to change.

She'd also started, via Marshall Von Bergliez, to move her troops towards the next conflict, amassing by the Kingdom's borders from two sides now, with the plan for invasion set in motion and conferred in phases. The actual first push would start the day El left to return to Garreg Mach, ensure things were stable there and then move the Eagles to wherever they were next needed. They'd been in Derdriu for 2 weeks now, Lysithea and Marianne were back, things were well established enough and it was time to go. 

The Black Eagles, leaving a unit of the Adrestian army behind with another to come by boat later today, planned to fly as swiftly as possible to Garreg Mach the next day, where they would triangulate with the Imperial military, most of the troops on the Alliance Border (some still needed in case of treachery and any rebellious individual lords) now free to focus on their more implacable foes: the Kingdom and The Church. In one stroke they had made things a dozen times easier, and spirits were high. They also now had another border to press Faerghus via, and the option of the sea. 

Sadly things weren't to be that easy, as plans never hold up to contact with the enemy. And their enemy had been learning from El's successes. 

That evening, as they finished up packing and preparing, fired up for the next push and the long journey over the upcoming days, and as they started to enjoy a final stationary evening together in their groups and their clearly forming trysts (El paired them all off in her head as she watched the flirting occur through the day, though sometimes pairs weren't the right collection to use), they received a disastrous message. 

  
  



	10. Begonia, a warning, Snapdragon, a deceit

It was a coded missive from one of the Agarthan moles Thales had seeded into the Church camp. This was already an oddity: since Edelgard had driven Seiros away from the Monastery 5 years ago, no, since she had failed to secure the Crest Stones and Byleth use joined her, Thales had given essentially no assistance at all, and had seemed wary about the connection with the Professor who they rightly saw as a threat and a weakening of their own hold on Edelgard. Now he just gave veiled threats and a few passive bits of assistance, where troops nominally under the Imperial command dissuaded attacks and rebellions. Not that his "assistance" previously had been wanted. It had often been actively unhelpful, though occasionally necessary, and frequently the Agarthans had acted entirely on their own, to abuse the small wins Edelgard had made to experiment on innocent villagers and other nasty surprises she had encountered. She had taken great pleasure in being "forced" to aid her mentor to foil these atrocities under the guise of staying undercover, and suspected they probably enjoyed any chance to either foil her own personal plans or to condemn them by association with their deeds. She had said, and meant, that any price was worth paying to improve this world, but she knew her allies' plan and method was very different to hers and that she couldn't trust them an inch. Had never trusted them, and had always loathed them. 

Still until the events at the Great Mausoleum Thales had kept up the pretence of working together at least, to remind her of the strings attached to her, the daggers around her father even now. It had been the declaration of a sort of cold war when they had essentially demonstrated that even the most basic degree of cooperation was past, but Edelgard had slowly been ensuring her assets were back in her own hands, starting with Jeritza, and moving pieces to ensure she was safe and well-positioned to take the fight to the bastards who had tortured her and her family. It was a fight she was insanely vulnerable in, such was the ease with which they evaded walls and defences using their subterranean networks, unique magic and technology far beyond anything Seiros had permitted Fodlan to develop, fearing it and hating it as being linked to Agartha. Or so Solon had said once, and she was inclined to believe that. She had been taught a little of the past between Agartha and Nabatea, biased by the Agarthans she was sure and she took what they said with a sea of salt, but she and Hubert had made their own investigations, Lindhart and Lysithea too in more recent years as they joined her inner circle who knew everything, and she knew more of Fodlan's true history and Agartha especially than Seiros or Thales could ever imagine. 

They should never have armed her with the knowledge or power to destroy Seiros because inherently it could do the same to them. She thought Thales realised this 5 years ago and that was why he now hindered her as much as helped her, no longer placing agents where they enabled her schemes or providing troops at all. That and she had cut her own ties, making it clearer and clearer that their arrangement felt like poison to her. Luckily she didn't need them now, not with the Alliance, with more allies than she could have hoped for. With Byleth. She just needed Fodlan whole and secure enough to survive the inevitable, likely insidious conflict. More time for Hubert to pinpoint exactly where they were based and what their weaknesses were. And to free Fodlan from one tyrant before she entered a battle she was worried would kill her. That was why she had approached her targets in this order: all needed to be defanged, so she had to take them on in order of difficulty. And Thales was the most dangerous by far. 

She was sure he was cunning enough to know this, that she would want to rid the world of him too. He must know that he hated her but it seemed to amuse him to use her for his dirty work, in his mind, she thought he had felt she wasn't ultimately a threat. Slowly, he seemed to be getting warier. 

_If only we had gotten those Crest Stones all those years ago. That had been a more risk free approach, a trap she could set for Those Who Slither In The Dark. As it stood they would know was coming. Hence the diminishing support. And hence the surprise now at a warning from them._

The slithering cowards were inherently better placed for spying and subterfuge than her own people, with their very nature but also their ability to shapeshift or steal bodies. It was unclear which. She had worked hard to ensure she could tell when she was interacting with one of their doppelgangers, and frankly once you knew such things existed it was very easy: they were universally bad actors, bereft of the empathy convincing imitation required and showing little interest in playing more than superficial roles. But if they weren't being sought out or were away from those who knew the original well and all that was needed was a physical disguise, they were sadly uniquely equipped to succeed and hence had more spies than her loyal forces did. Doubtless they had some in her army and her stronghold, although she was confident that the Eagles were free from their touch. That was another reason she relied on them and herself so much in key missions. 

They definitely did have spies in the Church. And one had gotten in contact, an act that implied either great need or something to be highly suspicious of in El's view. 

_If it were true, though, they had to act on it, so they couldn't ignore the warning._

It claimed that as she had been absent in Leicester for so long, Seiros had caught word and sent her elite troops including Seteth (Saint Cichol) to attack and raze Enbarr. They were leaving from near the Kingdom's Southern border (though El noted they still couldn't actually give her the information that would be useful, namely where Seiros had dug herself in. If she knew that, she would be tempted to attack herself straight away and end this conflict right now.) and thus were much closer than Edelgard, and they aimed to seize then destroy the palace, kill her father and set the city ablaze. 

There were some divisions in the vicinity of Enbarr, and she could get a message to mobilise them, but whether they would be able to prevent a pure hit-and-run raid was another question: they could stop armies, but a strike force like her own Eagles could achieve a more discrete, if that word applied, aim easily. She could move troops in from the Garreg Mach centre-land, but what would that do? Win back the city once it were taken, without much hassle at all, but it was a poor measure against assassins and saboteurs. Or she could take the Black Eagles there herself and should, if she hurried, beat him or meet him there. 

_Or I could tighten the guard on father. Or move him out. Or would that just make him more vulnerable?_

Even if she flew there, could she guarantee her father's protection any better than pre-warned guards? Maybe if her elites guarded him day and night, then she was confident they could spot and eliminate a threat before it appeared. But that was impractical, and she had to trust that the Imperial Guard she had left there, as long as they weren't caught unaware, could do the job they had been chosen and trained for. She couldn't do everything herself. That was a lesson from the last five years. 

Everything said she should inform the local defenses (thankfully possible due to magic as the foundations for communication were in place and she knew exactly where to find those they needed to contact), shore up the city and possibly move her father away to a secret location in the country or maybe to her own base of operations. Staying in the city had been to keep him away from war and danger, and it seemed that was going to fail anyway. 

That seemed like the obvious response, until Hubert revealed another ballista shot. 

"Your Majesty. There's more here. A double encryption, clever. A cipher we once used with your uncle." (How upsetting to feign that the demon who tried to pull her strings had to be referred to in such terms for secrecy's sake. One day she would cry to the world that this wasn't her kind, respected uncle but a beast who had stolen his face and not bothered to steal his mannerisms, a fiend called Thales! She would denounce him and show the entire world his true face, drawn and stretched on his severed head.)

"I don't like that tone of voice, Hubert. You're scared to tell me what it says. But I command it. Please."

He still looked unsure, something that terrified her. Hubert was never indecisive and the only thing he feared was failure. Where she sometimes had to fake her conviction and certainty, it felt like he never did. 

"Yes, your Majesty. It says that Archbishop Rhea will lead the attack in person, to avenge herself on you. That she intends to personally burn your home and kill your family. This is kept secret so if this letter is intercepted then she won't be made alert to that being leaked and to any danger to herself, but she will be in our lands and vulnerable before she leaves Enbarr in ruins.

_Ah. That would change things_. It was a risk to her people that she couldn't ignore and couldn't so easily defend against. And an opportunity to save lives that she couldn't dismiss. 

It also meant that the Eagles had to go themselves. An army was of little avail, and guards could defend against assassins but against three Saints? Who, El knew from fighting alongside two of them, training with one and being trained by the other and joining them on missions, were as skilled in combat as she, and vastly more experienced. The false goddess who had killed Nemesis in single combat, brought the whole of Fodlan under her yoke with her martial prowess, who weaved potent magics along with her famous sword skills. Who could turn into a dragon. Maybe the other two could too, who knew? And would Catherine the Thunderbrand be there too? Gilbert of the Knights of Seiros? Dimitri even? El and Byleth had defeated an angry Seiros on her own ground until she had turned into her monstrous form and wrecked the place, killing her own men and the Empire's indiscriminately. How would Enbarr survive that? What guards could fend it off? 

Only these guards, the most skilful fighters she had, from Kingdom, Alliance, Empire and the Knights themselves. Including the two of them who had driven the beast away last time, the two she would stay to fight. Edelgard and Byleth.

It was still odd, even knowing how Seiros had been consumed by emotion before, that she would strike out of pure spite. Likely there was more to this, but it didn't matter. There was no choice any more. This gambit had to be grasped. And if she could make it, Enbarr was her home ground. 

So, they would leave for Enbarr tonight, though some voice shouted muted warnings in the back of El's mind. Something felt off. The delivery of help from those who seemed to abandon her. The strange decision to attack her home, revenge or not, that she couldn't work out tactically. The convenient timing, with information that drew the conclusion that she could just make it on time if she left now. It stank of a trap. _By whom?_

Well, they could think on the move too. Leaving didn't mean committing to one action or another. Her mages contacted as many people in Enbarr and nearby as they could to prepare, and the Black Eagles hastened their leaving preparation. Before they left, El gathered her key advisors. Hubert was skeptical and thought Enbarr must be a goad to drive them into a mistake. "It's a taunt, your majesty, it must be. The kind of tactic I would use. Our mission is paramount, we should start the invasion of Faerghus now as a counterstroke and if they assault your home and your father we will avenge them and remember their sacrifice."

_My father has sacrificed enough, old comrade. But El listened, to see what else her court advised._

Ferdie, standing next to Hubert as ever, long hair flowing in the wind, gave his lover and rival an apologetic glance. "I disagree with the motive but agree with the suggested action. This isn't a taunt. It's desperation. Your father is the only vulnerability they can see now." _A bit hasty to be so confident I think_. "We should see this as confirmation that now is the time to finish them off."

Well, El would love to finish them off, and she knew that on the field and on the maps she would soon take apart the enemy armies now, a two-pronged attack (more if she used the sea) possible and forces freed up giving her a sizable advantage. But she had no ideas where their leaders hid and in the Kingdom her enemies could resort to guerilla tactics, hiding and striking, burning crops and villages rather than lose them to her. From what she had heard Dimitri, even if she did catch Seiros here, hated her enough now to do that to his own people if he fought it would lead to her death eventually. And was that not what sacrificing Enbarr would be, burning her people or letting them burn for her victory? If she had to pay that price, so be it, but it filled her with coldness. She needed to be sure. 

Caspar was more optimistic. "We aren't needed in the front lines. If you give the order, my father will lead the charge with my cousins, and if we are needed for a move more suited to the Eagles we can move into it later. I don't say we need to go to Enbarr, if it is a trap, but we can. We need to go somewhere you can rule and strategise, not watch your troops from the front." 

Fair points, and Byleth concurred. "Start the invasion, or the preparations at least, but we are wasted in such a conflict. Also, I do not believe Seiros, however much she hates us, would burn your civilians even if she is attacking Enbarr. I certainly don't think Seteth would allow her to. Something about this is off. I say we tell the capital to look out for any unexpected happenings, for some trickery, set the armies in motion, and fly South-West. We can decide whether to continue on to Enbarr or not later on."

So they flew. 

As ever with moving moderate numbers over such long distances with a time requirement, they used magic. A fit Wyvern or Pegasus could travel much faster than someone on horseback nevermind an army, but traversing a whole continent in less than weeks , albeit a small one (Truly a nation, until it suited the Church to break up the power balance here, calling our three small countries, as strong as they are, a continent is a risible conceit, a snipe at our neighbours), that was impossible without aid. Fortunately whilst direct teleportation required a huge amount of energy and was impractical, maybe impossible, with large numbers, dark magic users in the Empire had discovered over the years (and hidden from the Church of Seiros - progress was tacitly forbidden in Fodlan) ways to warp the nature of space to essentially "cut a straight line through the curves of reality" as Hubert said. El didn't truly understand it, but apparently space and time, the Dark Mages said, were twisted together in a swirling, bending shape. Cutting through time was impossible for anyone, but you could manipulate space. Lysithea had picked it up from him. The Black Magic users would manipulate wind and temperature of the air to speed their flight, and the White Magic users use energising magic to keep their steeds fresh. In this way, at the cost of strain to her Warlocks and Bishops, El could travel quickly enough, but with limited forces. 

It was always an amazing sensation and sight, to fly magic-aided. She had done so many times with Hubert at her side when she fought her multifaceted war alone with him. Every time stunned her, the blurring of light and racing of the land far beneath their feet, the strange skipping where they seemed to be still for seconds then suddenly leagues ahead of where they were. The clouds that got caught up with them twisted and snaked in unpredictable way, seemingly glowing with an undertone of not-quite discernable light, an underlight, the colour of Shadow. The light itself seemed to fly true, unaffected by their windingly direct route through the fabric of the universe, though at the edge of their burrowed path you could discern a separation, a blurring. It was as if they were carried on a current of light amidst a sea, and maybe that was true. El didn't know enough about it. Lindhart could lecture for hours on it, she was sure. He was always very academic about such things. Hubert practical. Lysithea however had surprised her, going beyond her usual technical understanding to give some rare poetry. She called the process "sailing under the violet winds of the void." El had no idea how apt it was on a true level, but it resonated with her soul, and fitted that hard to pinpoint, dark light aura she saw. Violet was close to it, a metaphorical violet at least. El had started to think of this as void-sailing ever since she had heard the phrase and saw Lysithea blush at Lindhart's fond smile in return. 

_They are sweet together._

Naturally, given the nature of their travel, the mages led, which gave her blessed time to follow, the burdens of leadership all mental for now. It also gave her time to think, riding even an augmented Wyvern natural to her by now. 

The more she thought, the more wrong this felt. _What do they even gain, aside from spiteful pleasure at my pain, in attacking Enbarr? They couldn't ever hold it. Burning it would be a psychological blow but not a strategic one, and they must know that I'll stay icily on track no matter what. Seteth, Cichol knows me that well. And I can't image him fulfilling his bluff and killing innocents, even if Seiros commanded it._ Though she wasn't completely sure on that. People would do awful things in the names of their gods, and though Cichol knew Seiros wasn't god, he still seemed to revere her. 

Maybe it was a way to goad her, or a desperate assault or a spiteful one or maybe it was a trap. But, for all that she was heading there now, it was a clumsy one. One they were all suspicious of.

Even if they had a plan to surround her at Enbarr when she arrived, there was no way they could get enough men there, in an already well-guarded city with armies nearby and the Agarthans operating in the area, sadly, to defeat her in a battle in her own home without a lot of luck. All they could do was raid it, any trap relied on prolonged time there that they couldn't guarantee safely. And there was no real, pragmatic gain to drawing her there of all places, not for Seiros, and no pragmatic gain to raiding the city. Everything of true importance for the Empire, every artifact of true power too, was with her now, scattered amongst her allies or in Garreg Mach.

Her mind froze as her body kept driving her mount forward by learned instinct. 

_Garreg Mach._ There was no advantage to Seiros of Edelgard arriving at Enbarr, to thwart her or take vengeance or maybe be in danger with a roll of the dice, if El were clumsy. But her being absent from the Monastery, that would matter. That was more isolated, and the Knights knew it well, was well-provisioned enough to potentially hold for a while. Many of her plans and allies were there, things she used to rule the Empire, her symbolism of her unification stood there in the centre of Fodlan. She had relics and items of power there, it was of strategic significance even if they couldn't hold it long, and close enough to the Kingdom for it to be feasible for a follow up army to support them and use it as a platform to attack the Empire in a bold pre-emptive strike.

_And it matters to Seiros on an emotional level, which seems important to her. She's driven by her past and I know the Crest Stones are related to her lost people. And they have power too, enough that Thales desperately wanted them._

She had planned to use them as bait for them both, to steal them in the crypt to draw Seiros out where she could strike her down with Hubert's spells and Amyr and then to lure Thales to their prize and turn on him before using their secrets to hunt down the Agarthan leadership. But Seiros' visceral reaction had stunned her, and then events had changed. She had defeated the Saint, the Immaculate One, but not held the Monastery and not captured or slain her, and then Thales had become so much warier of her since she had won back the stronghold that she knew he wouldn't fall for it. He had asked for the stones in payment and she had refused, pointing out that nothing really had been paid at all so far, apart from life-shortening pain to her that came with her second Crest, surely an even transaction at best. In truth, she had deciphered what the Stones truly were, what they meant to her and more to Byleth, whose father's diary she had read in the years of yearning for the woman she thought was lost forever, and the thought of misusing them or letting Those Who Slither touch them now sickened her. She had learnt a lot in five years.

So, this was a feint, and surely the Church was heading to steal back their old home not hers. And was this misdirection a ploy by the Church, who had no reason to draw her attention to any attack given they knew her to be absent somewhere in Alliance Territory with no way of telling how long it would have taken her to seize Derdriu? 

Or was their benefactor, the snake in the Saint Cult's grass, betraying El instead? If Thales knew she would turn on her and feared her, thought she would defeat Seiros and Dimitri too quickly and face him too fresh, he would try to sabotage her, to send her far away so she lost time and territory and face and had to fend off an attack on her own borders. Maybe there was a trap waiting for her in Enbarr, even, but one in Agarthan colours or more likely Imperial ones that Thales could claim were disgruntled nobles and rebels. Sothis knew there were enough real members of that club. It would be feasible, and whatever happened would leave Edelgard weaker for no real loss for Thales himself. 

She couldn't blame him for such a stroke. She had undermined many of Those Who Slither In The Dark's plans too and they were enemies waiting for war. Maybe this was the indication that it would come sooner than she expected? 

Sadly for Thales, she knew what she must do. Her forces would protect Enbarr if this were a double-bluff, and if she had made the wrong move and got burned, well, vindication was already on her mind anyway. She could live with a little more pain. 

Thales and his brood would get what they "were owed", as he had put it. Every grain of it, soaked in blood if she must. Seiros would be accounted for too, not for the crimes of her past but the problems of her future.

El had a dragon to slay.

"Hubert!" She shouted. "We need to bank down and regroup. There's been a change of destination, and I need to work how to approach this."

It was time to return to Garreg Mach.


	11. A thousand arrows blot out the Sun

They flew like the dawn's heralding rays, brutally incessant, until they reached the mountain cradle of Garreg Mach. There was no obvious way of knowing, without the complex apparatus long distance magical communication required, what awaited them there so on arrival Edelgard immediately gave commands for more traditional reconnaissance of the area. She set half her mages led by Hubert to scan the area and determine any useful information about who held the Monastery and to plan an invasion. The others were to create wards in case of any attack: they were well hidden in the forests just North of the stronghold but you could never be too sure. She then sent Yuri and Hapi, taken from the searching mages, into the tunnels that led to Abyss to search for clues and plan a way in unseen. After brief consideration she sent Petra and Jeritza, two of her most loyal warriors and one even more adept in stealth than Yuri, after them as a tail. She didn't distrust him, not really, but she knew he had been a mole for the Church before and she wouldn't be bitten twice. 

She sat creating possible plans to seize back the area in a dozen different ways with Byleth and Ferdinand and Caspar, and set Bernie and Shamir and Balthus in charge of forming a perimeter around them. Sylvain, Felix and Leonie led scouting sorties into the woods and grounds around the mighty colossus they had made their new home. 

Finally though they had information from several sources that the complex was still theirs.  _ We were on time. Or I misread the clues… _

Once all the evidence showed things were secure, they moved.

***

"Alright, we need to get ready for an attack as soon as possible. Byleth, I need you and Caspar to start planning our defence. We need to be alert to the possibility I've fallen for another feint or that this was nothing at all, so Hubert I need you to get in touch with your networks now and see what information is coming in. Yuri, can your rogues look for any clues on the grapevine as well? I am going with Ferdinand to catch up on affairs of state and then we will reconvene in 2 hours."

There was a lot to do, so Edelgard had no time to reflect on the possibility of being attacked or having been tricked. She was still sure she had read the signs right and an attack was imminent, and she trusted her lieutenants to handle that whilst she made sure the two Nations she was now responsible for were managing. Lindhart came with them to help send the aetheric messages to the distant cities their governing lords were settled in. Running two countries full of arguing nobles, whilst changing traditions and laws and setting the groundwork to change society and the method of rule even further was difficult enough without a war going on, but she didn't have time to wait. All she needed to do when she left this world early was to ensure that changing it for the better, for the fairer, was a thing with the momentum to outlive her, and she would use every gift and asset she had to ensure it had a chance of happening. So she was in turns bold, ruthless, diplomatic. She traded, threatened, demanded, forgave and punished in quick succession, relying on her political teaching and reading and instincts as well the astuteness of Ferdie and advice from the lords she actually trusted to choose which option was best suited to each situation. Most of all she needed everyone to respect her - the common folk of the nation she had taken by force and of the country she had reclaimed from a de facto coup, the nobles she juggled and planned to remove privileges from over the next decade or so, her troops. Even the remnants of the Church that didn't follow Seiros directly: much like Annette and Mercedes joining her, a surprising number of them, alienated by the Archbishop's management of the outlying smaller Churches and outraged at the abuse of faith, had separated themselves and aligned with her. Or maybe they just thought she would win. Either way, Edelgard was glad. Not just because she would need the Church politically, in some guise, as it remained genuinely important to many, but because people needed faith. She didn't oppose it, though she didn't ascribe to it - she just didn't think it should knowingly lie to manipulate people nor ever influence the rule of nations directly. At one point a few years ago, in her frustration she had considered clamping down on religion but luckily the phantom of Byleth had spoken in her head, echoing conversations they had had at the Academy, where the teacher has pointed out that the faith, one's belief in a higher power, the church as a support for that faith, and the Church as an authority were all different things. Edelgard shouldn't collate them, and define the former two as bad because the last had become out of control. People deserved religious freedom, something Seiros had only offered to the powerless, and denying them that would make her a hypocrite. Plus it would have alienated a lot of people, and not just believers. 

The Church as led by Seiros would always be a threat though, such that the only feasible way to spare her would be to utterly decouple the two, separate their powers. She would, either way, need a new head of the faith, one she could trust but, as State shouldn't suppress the Faith any more than Faith suppress the State, not rule or command in any way. Stripped of much of its martial power and authority and political heft, the Church would deal with entirely different matters to her future government of equals, as would the army and the aristocracy she hoped, both much changed, and that would eliminate conflict of interest. The most obvious candidate was Byleth herself, whom many of the faithful who had shunned Seiros once her deceit was revealed believed to be blessed of Sothis, if not a prophet of Sothis herself. That was dangerous though, an inherent abuse of their misguided belief and rife with problems regarding their own relationship and her promise to herself not to unduly influence the Church. 

_ Mercedes maybe? Or Annette? _ The most qualified candidate would be Saint Cichol but that was unlikely for myriad reasons. 

_ Speaking of which, what news?  _

The most pressing issues of politics and war patched up though not mended, Edelgard joined the rest of her inner circle. To news. 

Hubert's face was as impassive as ever but tinged with darkness. Everyone else looked worried. "Any update?"

"Yes. My sources aren't sure, our only spies close to Seteth himself are Agarthan and thus there's no way I'm contacting them. But Yuri's told us 10 minutes ago that he is close. And the alarm we we received from our sentries just this moment tells us that they are here."

***

They had run to positions, finalising the defence plans concocted by her commanders on the move. More time to prepare traps and organise units would have been useful, or even more so for the divisions in the area to travel to the Monastery to protect it, but they were days away. Luckily the fortifications were always somewhat prepared and in the past two hours Caspar and Byleth had armed ballistas and onagers and charged the fire orbs. They had men ready and hot oil on the battlements of Garreg Mach itself. 

Seiros herself was reportedly at the head of an army, albeit a small one, attacking through the great valley leading to the holy site itself. They marched upon them from the North, having passed through the Valley of Torment. It was a big enough army to cause trouble, but in terms of numbers for an outright battle, nevermind storming a fortress...  _ It's too small. _ That was how they had come this close unseen, but with a contingent of her Imperial Guard and personally loyal troops here, commanded by Ladislava and Randolph, Edelgard had them outnumbered, with every advantage in terms of high ground and the defensive terrain, with reinforcements closer than the Church could possibly have larger forces that the airborne patrols wouldn't have spotted.  _ No, this isn't her move _ . It was another trick, to lure them out. Maybe Edelgard herself, if Seiros knew she might arrive in time. They would try and harm the Imperial leaders, and draw things out for another attack, on the Monastery through some secret route only Seiros and her men knew about, and if Seiros were ever truly in danger, Edelgard suspected she would withdraw. 

She resisted the urge to face her and smite her in battle, to run into danger. She had been willing to take the bait in Enbarr, but here the chances to trap the Saint were much lower and the bait was dual purpose - they'd swarm the Emperor if they could, and turn around a war that was close to unwinnable for the Kingdom and Church now, of course, but the real prize, given Edelgard's presence here should be a surprise, would be the Monastery itself. 

_ It will be Cichol.  _ Catherine was too unsubtle and would surely fight by her mistress's side. Cyril was too inexperienced as a leader, Gilbert too unimaginative. Saint Cichol was a real danger, experienced and wily. And the one she least wanted to kill.

So, rogues watching every known underground entrance and forces covering the Abyss, but expecting something unexpected, Edelgard kept some forces back along with her Black Eagles and left Randolph and Ladislava to combat Seiros. If they got lucky and slew her, that was good and well. It was more likely the battle would be a stalemate now, a sacrifice of the lives of her men to some degree she was sure, but a worthwhile gamble in the end. With the defensive ground, even if the Church's army beat them in casualties inflicted, they wouldn't be able to breach the Monastery without a protracted bloody fight that would see reinforcements arrive. She wouldn't lose the symbolism and the strategic advantage of the centre-land and Garreg Mach, not when Seiros could not win in pitched battle here, not when her men were doomed if the Monastery fell, trapped between two forces. Yet if Edelgard kept her whole guard here and tried to hold the battelements purely defensively, Seiros could raze their ground and ruin the region and might still know a secret way in. Splitting her forces, her commanders agreed, was necessary. 

She waited. 

She didn't have to wait long.

***

Cichol and his forces had snuck through some secret approach to appear in some woods perilously close to the Monastery walls. It was by dumb luck alone that Shamir, who had remembered such goat paths leading through to here away from the main pass, existed and had eyes sharp enough to spot the trickle of smoke drifting above the trees.

They had fire: torches and tinders for lighting arrows, and stacks of dry wood. Most of the defences were made of stone, and would survive the attack: they had survived Seiros' wrath after all. But there were fences and balustrades and other wooden structures to set ablaze both inside the walls and out, and fire wouldn't spare the Adrestians inside.

_ So that's part of the plan.  _

Seteth himself rode his Wyvern, bearing his legendary Ochain shield and a gleaming Silver Lance. His weapon of renown, the Spear of Assal, sat in Garreg Mach's Armoury, left in Byleth's protection after the Black Eagles had assisted Cichol and his "sister" in a personal mission.  _ He must regret that _ . Edelgard certainly regretted this: she had liked the man who had warmed so much to them after that journey and a year of working together. He had given the House special lectures on Wyvern-care and combat with swords and spears as a favour to Byleth. He had thanked them after they rescued his daughter from kidnapping, an act Edelgard had sadly known was happening, even if the method of it outraged her, as did the result. It had been planned as a trap, to gain Seiros' trust and as part of an exchange with the Agarthans for her blood, supposedly to test and confirm their joint theory as to who Flayn and her father were and to try to create a way for anyone to hold a hero's relic. She thought it would make crests redundant. Instead it helped monsters to create new, different monsters out of innocent souls. 

She still felt furious at being used, alongside shame for her part in enabling that experiment and aiding the capture of a girl who though truly centuries old still seemed a child inside. And she felt shame for how her involvement in getting Flayn back had won Cichol's trust. She didn't blame him for feeling personally betrayed, disregarding his loyalty to the Archbishop even. 

He looked majestic, every bit the Saint of Legend, surrounded by a small army of heavy fortress knights, Wyverns and Pegasus riders. It must have been close to the maximum number of troops that could sneak through such a small path so quickly. No mages, though. And no Flayn. 

She still thought of the girl that had joined them so earnestly and honestly for several months as Flayn, though she knew she had a far older name. Her personality and enthusiasm just reeked of youth, forever young just as Edelgard had become old before her time and Hubert had been born a grumpy old man. She was deeply fond of Flayn, and would have sighed in relief to see her absent from the battlefield, a genuinely believable move given her very protective father, if it weren't for a niggle in her brain and the absence of other magic users. 

"Hubert! Our enemy knows Garreg Mach from inside and out. We should watch out for ambushes in the woods."

Her right hand man nodded. "They are clearly inviting us to attack their fire-wielders, now they are making them more obvious, so a trap is likely. But I fear we will have no choice. If they know any side passages they can burn through, who knows how quickly they could enter the grounds and what other tricks about this place they know?"

Edelgard turned to her colleagues. "You all know what to do. Byleth, with me. I need you to cover my back. Let's fight for our new home."

***

The battle had been fierce and at the start the zealous fury of the Church's troops had been difficult to withstand. As soon as the Imperial forces made a move out of the walls of Garreg Mach, hidden Church soldiers, including clerics and mages, led by Flayn had appeared to lead a surprise attack. Luckily they had been briefed on that possibility, and covered that flank warily.

Slowly, carefully as to minimize casualties, the defenders wrestled back the initiative, keeping their shape as much as possible and broke the attack down. Alois and Shamir were integral to the response, knowing the strengths and weaknesses of the Knights of Seiros, of the Faith Militant in general and of the Saint himself, and they led their own units of ex- Knights with decisiveness and acumen. Their prongs drove the assault back, and opened space for the Eagles to work, whilst professors Hanneman and Manuela lent support to each on horseback, Manuela healing up close and from afar, moving around the rear lines like a troubadour moving between towns and Hanneman and his magic corps aggressively adding firepower to finish off resilient foes. 

  
  


Step by step, they gained momentum.

***

As the battle progressed, Edelgard's confidence grew. 

_ We should win this. We kept more men back than Cichol was ready for. I only hope it hasn't cost the main army too much.  _

However, progress was being hindered by the irritating healing that seemed to mend any non-immediately fatal wounds the enemy suffered.  _ Flayn _ . Byleth told her that several of their mages had tried to Silence the Little Saint, from Manuela to Marianne to Yuri, but the sheer willpower of the ageless youngster couldn't be overwhelmed. The wounds kept closing up. 

Irritatingly Cichol himself sat back. They had ballistas turned on him and his Wyvern Knights in case he made a move, and spells prepared, as well as Leonie and Bernie having orders to make a beeline for him to intercept his route to the Monastery. Patience seemed natural to a centuries old legend though, and he seemed content to use his strategic mind over his combat prowess.

_ Well, one thing will force his hand. _

Surrounded by her own personal Heavy Axe squadron, Edelgard turned to Byleth as they watched from their vantage point, having stayed out of the action so far aside from issuing commands as they watched the battle unfold together like pieces on a board. 

"Byleth! We need to remove Flayn from the situation to nullify the healing of the enemy troops, and then we can take out their leader when he retaliates. But I don't want to hurt her if at all possible!"

She had done and ordered a great many bad things in this mission of hers, but if she could prevent the blood of an innocent being split, she would.

The general, her bodyguard, a dazzling spirit of valour wielding an almost comically diminutive rapier and light armour whilst her father's mercenaries held her other weapons close to hand, nodded. "We'll go together. I think, if we survive her initial outrage, we can talk her down or at least neutralise her safely. But her father will come after our blood."

She paused. "I'd like to spare him too, if it's not too naïve. But this is a battlefield and whatever happens, it happens. Let's go."

***

Their approach to the little grove where Flayn held the line as her men harried the sides of the Imperial defence was arduous. The terrain was not optimal for heavy armour, but Edelgard and her guard were fit and fresh, and on the more strenuous ground they were covered by Byleth's more lightly armoured soldiers.

And Byleth herself, flowing between weapons like an artist between colours, healing wounded Adrestians and smiting with tangible venomous fury any who dared direct an attack on Edelgard. Now a thunderbolt crashed into a unit of horse, then assassins approaching in the dark were struck down with punishing light. Flames drove away fliers, a perfectly struck arrow fired on the run cut down a mage who looked at her El too long. And if they came closer than that, well, Byleth's blade was a quicksilver wind with a razor edge and a needle point, flickering for multiple blows in succession that somehow always found flesh where all you could see was armour. 

Edelgard quickly learned to pay her no attention, for two reasons: firstly, it was unnecessary - Byleth would protect her she trusted that utterly, didn't need the reassurance of her eyes. And secondly, even with the flowing of blood and the terrifying heat and awful light she was producing, even with eyes that screamed with intensity (especially with those eyes, claiming Edelgard over everyone who tried to lay a hand on her, even if they didn't know it), the sight of her in battle was so distractingly beautiful and even sensual, speaking straight to her loins.

It was nice not having to concentrate on her side or back from a practical perspective though. She could concentrate on attack, letting frontal blows bounce off her heavy "fortress" armour as she hacked down enemy after enemy with a long- handled Brave Axe, as the weapon was called, a weapon designed for strike after strike.

Bit by bit, trusting the rest of the battle to the individual officers, they approached Flayn. 

***

As they approached, Flayn's guard of mages and her loyal Cethelean monks, sworn to the Saint that they may or may not know they directly guarded, moved to fight off their attack. Of this, Edelgard was wary - heavy armour was a fine defence against many things but against the heat of fire magic, it was a metal sarcophagus and against white magic it may as well be butter. She knew how to take care of herself, but this was a real danger now. Byleth, by reflex, stepped in front of her, preparing to use her own spells to take the brunt of their attack, but no onslaught came. And Edelgard smiled. They had been Silenced, the subtle glow of magic dulled around them. She glanced around, looking for their benefactor, and saw Marianne Von Edmund, protected by soldiers all around her and Ferdinand in the air on Honour, standing on a hill, Levin Sword in hand.

_ Thank you, Mari. That makes this easier.  _

"Soldiers, detain the magic users. The general and I will confront their leader."

Flayn had been concentrating on the battle further afield, aetheric sparks dancing from her hands to some poor wounded soul.  _ I'm sorry.  _ It seemed awful to be influencing the battle by impeding the recovery of dying warriors, but at least it would hasten the end of this fight by drawing Cichol into combat where they could defeat him and rout his forces. 

Finally she noticed their approach, Emperor and Bodyguard on foot, the latter holding a rapier in one hand and a fireball in the other, Eagle Pendant swinging on her neck, the former now wielding a custom-made sword and a hexlock shield to ward off offensive spells. 

"You?! Edelgard, how could you do this? I thought you were good, but this is wrong. War! Death! And you used me… and Professor Eisner…"

When she looked at the two of them, she wasn't angry. Just sad and confused. Like a child who had discovered she'd been lied to, or that the world wasn't as good or as simple as she'd been taught.

_ After all these years, no matter how many wars have happened and how old she is, she is just a child, albeit an intelligent and powerful one. Child's body, child's perspective. Is that because she hasn't aged? Naturally or due to some sort of curse? Or hasn't been allowed to, with her father's protectiveness buffering her from the world? _

Either way, Edelgard couldn't kill her, no matter what.

"When I heard you were alive, Professor, I was so happy. But now... Now this? How can it be that you fight on that side? I cannot take your life, for I owe you mine, even now. And yet I cannot back away from this fight. When this is over, my brother and I will go into hiding. It is the only way."

Much like herself, Flayn seemed frozen, torn between what she felt she needed to do, what was right in the bigger picture, versus what was absolutely right and her heart would allow. Then she found a third option and launched a bolt of light at Edelgard. 

Edelgard worried for an instant that Byleth would make the wrong choice, prioritise her and not trust her to protect herself, and draw this out, but she dismissed such treacherous thoughts. 

Drawing Flayn's gaze away from her partner, strafing left with impressive agility in her armour, she dodged the spell Abraxas, then used her enchanted shield to hold off the tendrils of Nosferatu, all enhanced by the staff the bishop held. Not the holy Caduceus that thankfully sat in the vaults less than a mile away, but still potent. Keeping her occupied on the target she could hurt and wanted to hurt, though how deeply she didn't know and suspected the girl didn't either, she drew Flayn's attention for long enough for Byleth, easing forwards, to pounce, wrapping her in her strong arms and pinning her arms to her sides. Quickly, she disarmed the Saint and bound her, preventing her from using any magic to strike back, as magic White and Black inherently needed the use of the mind, the mouth and the arms. That was Dark magic's great advantage. 

"Sorry Flayn. I promise I didn't want to hurt you, and Byleth will let you go as soon as things are done here, but I need to speak to your father and this is the quickest way to get him to come to me."

There was defiance shining in her eyes now. "So, I'm the mighty Edelgard's bait. Again. Are you going to take anything else from me? Blood perhaps? Maybe an eye?"

Edelgard ignored her goading. She knew she had hurt her before, and why, and what she needed to do.

"I won't hurt your father either, unless he makes me. Now I need to make sure he knows you're in my hands. I really will explain everything one day."

That drew a bitter laugh.

"I have little interest in hearing your blasphemous excuses." She turned regretfully to Byleth. "Farewell, Professor. I do not imagine we shall ever meet again."

"Oh, hush. You haven't gone anywhere yet. Now let's get you on top of that hill so daddy knows where to find you."

  
  
  



	12. Lycoris

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Edelgard faces off against a mighty foe, then confronts him and the truth.

It didn't take long for the Saint of the Sword and Spear to take notice of their little party on the hill, Flayn safe but bound in the middle, news spreading across the battlefield faster than Edelgard would have expected. 

However, she had expected the alacrity with which he now moved. 

She imagined there must have been a wordless roar audible to those closer by. Cichol never hid his emotions, possibly couldn't, where his daughter was concerned. For good reason: the poor girl had been endangered before, and indirectly by Edelgard's hand, though her life in truth had been no more at risk than it was now - she had been clear to the Death Knight, Jeritza, about that, no matter what Those Who Slither In The Dark, who had command of him for that mission, said, and his loyalty to her was only split with that to his eagerness for combat. 

The Saint shot through the air on his beast like a green-fletched arrow fired from a longbow, straight and true, the man ignoring every danger as the Wyvern cleverly twisted past arrows and spells. Edelgard didn't expect any to finish him even if one hit. In fact, she hoped he arrived unscathed and as bold and reckless as his current flight seemed. The less he stopped to think, the better. 

Soaring through the air, he approached the summit on which his daughter and her captors stood. And the trap waiting for him below. 

The plan they had formulated was optimally designed so that if Seiros had taken her beast form and flown to set Garreg Mach ablaze once more, they could take her out of the air, and it had come from a discussion with Claude before they parted ways in Derdriu. This would be a worthy test run if nothing else. 

Edelgard had watched her key pieces move into place, understanding the signal Byleth had shot into the air. This general possibility had been discussed as they waited for Cichol's anticipated sneak attack. Now she hoped it would work, or this would quickly become her life versus his, and she preferred to lose neither.

He continued to fly directly at them until Edelgard could make out the detailing on his armour, seconds away at his current pace. 

_ Now _ . 

Two arrows, gleaming like streaks of peach sunset, zapped out of the trees below, from different angles. Fired by two of Edelgard's most reliable marksmen, Bernadetta and Leonie. Shamir, she hoped, had a back up shot with her longbow waiting, in case one missed or they needed another approach. As the quarrels struck the mighty Wyvern on each flank, despite his late attempt to swerve away, one that was defeated by the well-planned shots, the approach from both sides and his rider's hastiness to reach the hilltop and save his child, a thick mist, almost a cloud, gathered around him from all angles, conjured by half a dozen mages manipulating water and wind. 

This was risky, not for what it meant regarding Cichol but because it deprived her forces of so many key fighters. Nonetheless, Alois and Caspar marshalled the defence against the dwindling Church soldiers, directed and aided by Hubert, Constance and Annette whose magic was terrible enough to cow their enemies without more numbers. Hopefully none of the enemy had noticed the significant magical omissions. Mercedes and Manuela kept healing away, working as tirelessly as Flayn had for their attackers. The ground was covered by other formidable fighters from Sylvain and Felix, whose battalions had seized most of the remaining kindling packs and torches, to Jeritza the Death Knight himself. The battle would be fine, and would be over once Cichol was defeated.

Cichol was feet away now, when the cloud surrounding him became a thunderstorm, and with a flash of deadly light, he and his steed fell from the sky like a stone.

***

The second he hit the ground a sky-shattering scream split the air and tendrils of tenebrous energy tore out of the fabric of reality and entwined the downed pair in a complex knot of occult power, pinning them to the ground like their shadows.  _ Well timed Hapi. Now for the improvised part.  _ Taking advantage of the minute or so of the hindrance the Banshee spell had bought them, El stormed down the hill, Byleth in tow. 

As Cichol, struggling to dismount from his steed in slow motion, strands of umbrose matter sticking to him like threads of spidersilk, fixed his furious attention on them, lifting his spear towards Edelgard in slow motion, the third member of this part of their plan slipped in from the side: Lysithea and Lindhart, the former equipped with the incredible artifact that Lorenz had added to their cause. Thrysus, the Staff of Gloucester, wieldable, due surely to fate's sense of irony, by Lysithea only due to her unwanted extra Crest. The one that had been bought for the forced sacrifice of much of her life, much as El's had been.  _ My predecessor, in many ways, poor girl. We shall make things worth it all in the end, I promise. _ Her partner, in more ways than one, wielded a second stave of power, even more ironic here. Saint Cethleann's own Caduceus Staff, wielded long ago by the sweet ancient child they now held hostage and granted to Byleth's safe keeping by Cichol himself after they aided him 5 years ago. 

The two magicians hid and waited in the bushes outside of the Saint's peripheral vision, biding for the opportune moment. El kept the warrior distracted. 

"Saint! Cichol himself, the first Knight of Seiros. You have fought bravely but it is time to surrender, for you have lost. Lay down your spear now and save your men's lives."

The response was a sneer. "You have a lot of gall settling in this holy place, a place you desecrated and invaded, traitor. Lay down my spear? I think not. I'll wash it in your blood instead, and finish at least one of my missions, and my soldiers and I will make the sacrifice we knew we were risking when we came here today."

_ Pretty resolute in his detestation for me. _ El would admit that she had always admired that about the man. She had to get a little closer and keep him here. 

"I'm not sure that would solve as much as you think, either for this war or longer term. And I'd rather discuss matters in a more civilized manner. Drop the spear and we'll talk. Don't, and I'm afraid I'll cut down your dear daughter. We are all rather fond of Flayn, so please don't force me to do that, Cichol."

For an instant, the Saint's eyes flashed with wrath then fear. Then, absurdly, he gave a rueful smile. What he did now didn't really matter though, as long as he didn't spot the noose around him. El kept striding forward, uncomfortably aware that she was well within throwing range, but trusting her own reflexes and her bodyguard's ability to defend her.  _ Almost there… _

"It's Seteth now. It has been for years, Cichol is long gone. You know, mere minutes ago, I thought you capable of any atrocity, but seeing you again now, somehow, I know you wouldn't harm my daughter. You're just a lost little girl for all your power, the same as she is, manipulated by your true enemies. How did it ever come to this, child?"

The truth in his words, only echoes of the full story but enough regardless, stung at her, but she wasn't distracted. She kept moving forwards, and suddenly Seteth wasn't bound any more, the Banshee effect worn off, his mount growling and coiling its limbs, and, predictably, he tensed to attack as his beast prepared to pounce. He hesitated though, something changing to prevent him from taking his one shot to assassinate her. Maybe he did see something of his daughter in her? Or some of her perspective, her motivation? Regardless, it mattered not. They were close enough now.

"Now!" Realising something was changing, Seteth moved like quicksilver, his arm unleashing his spear with a thrust as the wyvern’s legs beneath him sprang to launch the pair of them into the air.

But with a stream of dappled light, a jittering flow of hundreds of kaleidoscopic motes, like a shattered rainbow, the perfectly timed intervention by Lysithea and Lindhart working in tandem (able to touch them all from a distance thanks to their unique aids), Seteth’s wyvern flickered, disintegrating into shards of matter of every hue like broken stained glass for one instant until with a flash that sent every witness's vision red it vanished altogether. 

This happened mid-lunge, destroying his balance entirely, such that he flipped forward as if in slow motion, helpless against his own momentum and gravity, clumsily planting his face into the dirt after his weapon stabbed into the soft earth and was ripped from his grasp by his own stumbling trajectory. 

He now knelt, vulnerable, on the ground, Edelgard an arm-span away and armed, with insult added to injury in the form of mud splattered on his face. With a single stroke, she could take his head and end this skirmish, this failing invasion. 

She stayed her hand. 

El really did want him alive, and whilst they could have eliminated him easily enough in the middle of the battlefield with a spell or an arrow, defeating him from afar without a high risk of killing him was impossible. Grounding him had been a nuanced risk, to remove his escape route if nothing else, but a more direct ranged attack couldn't be controlled enough.

In theory, she could have engaged him hand to hand even with the others surrounding them, but the other thing she wanted to do was talk.

“Seteth. This battle is over. You have the choice, whether you think I would harm your child or not, to risk the lives of your soldiers, who surely will fight on longer if you do not cede, as well as your own, or to stop the bloodshed, surrender now and hear me out. I could kill you or capture you now, but all I want is to talk and to avoid unnecessary extra deaths. Do you accept?”

Lips tight and obviously furious and embarrassed, he gave a stiff nod. “I might despise you but I will not let my men die for nothing, if we have no hope of skewering your treacherous heart or crushing your army. Maybe Rhea will be on her way through your military with a full host of knights, but we both know that fight is likely a stalemate. I’ll give the order, damn you.”  _ That is what I thought. Thank whatever powers existed in this world, if there were any, that Seiros sent him and not Catherine, or we would be left fighting till every fanatic was dead. _

Within a few minutes Byleth had dragged him, not ungently, up to the peak of the hill and let his forces see his proclamation of capitulation. They swiftly stood down, and were slowly shepherded away from the battlements in safety, their arms taken from them. Flayn and Seteth remained under guard until the entire grounds were secure.

Once everything was clear, Flayn was released, seething but seemingly conflicted, to her men. She refused to meet El’s gaze, and El found she struggled to look at the ancient young girl. She had not done well with that one.  _ I am sorry, little one. I wish I could have treated you with more honesty and used you less. Maybe I should have.  _ She had written a letter saying as much that her friends would slip to Flayn, but she would not blame the girl if she didn’t open it. Maybe she would speak to Mercedes or Annette if she sent them to accompany her to her surrendered soldiers, whilst Edelgard dealt with other business? Either way, it hurt to see the cheerful, trusting being look at her with so much pain and distrust.

She turned to Seteth, and murmured so that only he could hear, close enough that she could see his breath. “We need to go somewhere more private. I can trust my inner circle, I am fairly sure, but there are topics I am about to discuss that I cannot afford for others to hear. There will be spies about and even being seen to talk is a risk. We will say I am giving you a message to take to Seiros, and in a way that is true, but these words are mostly for you to choose how you act on them.”

He gave another tiny, terse inclination of his head and growled back. “Go wherever you will and say your piece. I want to be done with you as soon as is possible.”

Sighing internally, Edelgard waved Byleth over. She thought that he was sensible enough and able to dissociate from his emotions enough talk and maybe plant some seeds for another contingency plan incase she died, but he probably hated her enough right now, and was enough of a threat even to her, that she wouldn't relish transporting him with her entirely unguarded, even carefully checked for weapons. The man was famously lethal in hand-to-hand combat.  _ That would essentially be the perfect opportunity Seiros would be praying for. If she prays to anyone other than herself.  _ Then she gave the signal Lysithea and Lindhart had been waiting for.

In an explosion of motes, the world ceased to exist.

***

  
  


The moment of warping, when her body didn't exist in this physical plane but rather was pushed through reality (Lindhart had explained this was why Light or Dark Mages could use the spell, one using the power of creation to recreate a person from tiny particles that kept their sense of identity, in a micro-divine act, the other the power outside of it to warp space and time around the person. She didn't want to know which she had been subject to) lasted an instant and an aeon, with nothing to reference time by. Existing solely as her knowledge of existence, it was terrifying. Alone in a dark where light couldn't even be perceived. 

Then she existed, suddenly bursting into corporality in the middle of a grove her fighters had secured at the start of the battle, now relatively secluded and deep in her territory, safe from interference. The perimeter was guarded by her most trusted companions. No battalions, no squads that might Agarthan agents or spies for Seiros. The Black Eagles alone held this clearing. She was followed in a heartbeat by the two green-eyed warriors, hers and Seiros'. A tense situation, this.

"Why have you brought me here? What can you possibly have to discuss with me"

_ A good question _ . 

El was all too aware of the presence of her lovely guard, eyes fixed on the two of them, ready to cast a beam of energy-sapping light or a stream of flames if the old man made the wrong move. She had not had time to prepare Byleth for everything she had to say. But she had to say it. 

“A little explanation, I think, though I am sure you do not care to hear my excuses. More importantly, I have information that I need you to know, lest anything happens to me.” And Claude, and Byleth, and Hubert. If she were left reliant on Seiros’ faithful commander, things would indeed have become desperate and she would be long dead. However, she would rather a weakened Seiros, for her many faults, stood armed against Those Who Slither In The Dark rather than hand them Fodlan on a plate, as they had once instructed her to do, so arrogantly sure she could not succeed along a third path, could not succeed at all without their help. They must suspect by now, so her life was increasingly in danger the closer she came to neutralising all their mutual targets.

She also doubted Seteth’s loyalty was blind. He must trust and serve Seiros to even be here, but if anyone on that side would listen to her, and might rein the Church in and even act against Seiros herself if he saw it was inevitably necessary, it was him. If the Archbishop's decline, accelerated by Edelgard’s actions and the Agarthans for certain, she could admit that, but obviously progressing over centuries and worse in more recent decades to any observant subject of history and politics, continued, Seteth's loyalty would be sore tested. Edelgard was a little vexed that he hadn't been pushed by his leader's actions so far.

  
  


Right now though, he was clearly of a mind with her. A sneer, twisted with a little pain, crossed his face again. "I have no interest in your self-absolution or your justifications. You have plunged this peaceful continent into war and taken up arms against the voice of your goddess, siding with the enemies of all. There can be no fruitful conversation between us."

He stilled when she took a step towards him. Inwardly, though his words lashed her, she was calm. She had expected him. She had known this was how many would see her, perhaps even how history would see her, and been willing to make that sacrifice. Obviously some spectre of regret or anger showed on her face though, because he seemed, unbelievably, intimidated. "Sorry, when I said we need to talk, it would have been less misleading to say that I am going to talk and you are here to listen, for now. Stay silent, by all means, if all you have to add is insulting hypocrisy and blind defence of one who deserves none of it." Seteth's eyes bored a hole into her skull, as lethal a stare as Edelgard had ever faced, but his lips stayed shut. 

"I know you do not trust me, and I cannot fault that, but you are more likely to listen to what I have to say than Seiros in her state or Dimitri after the bait Thales seems to have fed him, and I need someone on the Church's side to know everything, for the slim possibility that you win this first conflict and the tyrant stays in power."

Seteth's eyes bulged with outrage, and axe at his cheek or not he couldn't hold back his indignation. "Seiros? Tyrant? You, you who have taken your own nation in your fist and bent it to your will and made its name as an Empire true by seizing this land and the Alliance and now turn your avaricious gaze to Faerghus? Who has committed Heresy and sided with monsters and taken a continent that had known only peace for centuries and started a bloody war for nothing but power and some spiteful rejection of the Archbishop? Whose hands are awash with blood, you dare call Rhea a Tyrant? Any damage to her state of mind is down to you and the betrayal you have committed and the atrocities you performed in the most sacred of places in all of Fodlan. How dare you. Her name is Rhea, too, for she has changed with the years, with the petty crimes of your race."

Well, there was truth to some of that, though those harms were things she had fretted over for years, weighed against the alternatives and chosen to sell her soul with against the impossibility of any other successful path. She wouldn't let the sanctimoniousness of his claims go unchallenged though. 

"I am guilty of much. I have plotted with the worst people I have ever met. I have led to the deaths of many. But you clearly have no understanding of my motives, and worryingly little insight into your own leader, if you believe what you have just said. Fortunately, this is on topic. You say Seiros has changed: well maybe that is true, but it is not for the better."

So they spoke, as concisely as possible, explaining what the Agarthans had planned and how well hidden they were, but that Hubert had gathered all the information collected on them in a secret place and had almost enough to pinpoint their hidden city. Seteth's face filled with disgust when he learnt how long they had worked with the Agarthans.

"Why? Why not come to us, to Rhea? Rather than aiding murderers?" 

She scoffed at that. "Ah yes, the Archbishop who is famously tolerant of threats, when I had been worked on as a weapon against her for years, after months of bloody experiments. I'm sure she would have listened to me, after turning a blind eye to everything that was done in Adrestia. Besides that, as much worse as Thales and his ilk are, her rule of Fodlan had to end too and there was no way I could tell her that and expect to live."

"Whatever do you mean? Rhea's rule has seen an era of peace and unity, and she would never harm you until you made an enemy of her."

_ I think he's being sincere _ . Love and loyalty could truly blind a man. "Really? I've seen the woman command the execution, sometimes via an invasion, of those who oppose her. Telling her she was not fit to rule? Giving any hint that I might be involved in a movement against her? How long would I live, even if I were deep in the Empire, before we consider what the omnipresent Agarthans would do they when caught wind of my informing her."

She looked Seteth right in the eyes as her bodyguard watched them both. "Saint Seiros fought a war against humanity that she lied about - the Adrestian Imperial Family remembers that the Elites were  **against** her not with her. If they were mankind's heroes, she was mankind's shackler. And her actions prove it." Her voice raised now and she cut across Seteth's protestations. "She lied about the war and lied about the Crests, the result of her privileged bloodline that could not have been given freely but stolen from the callous gods, but then used those Crests and those lies to tie humanity into an unfair structure of nobles ruling peasants no less inherently worthy by virtue of divine power she enforces by her hand and by her religion, another fiction.” She drew in another breath and surged on, her words gaining momentum. “You say she has upheld years of peace, but I count many wars against Fodlan that have scarred the country and alienated us against our neighbours, and many crimes against other peoples committed within our borders as a result. Where was divine justice and peace when the Knights of Seiros slaughtered Duscur, when Seiros, or Rhea if you claim that name fits her now, sent her fierce left hand, the Thunderbrand, to slay nobles who opposed her on false charges? Or again when she sent the Thunderbrand at the head of half-trained children, those you face today, to slay his grieving father?” 

She felt quivers of righteous fury pulse through her. “I count wars within Fodlan, attacks on nobles who speak up, and wars to split the continent into little nations when she deemed any person or group had too much power for her own liking. Where was her peace then? But then, she claimed peace and washed her hands when nobles stood against another with too much influence and knowledge, when she let my father be cast down into a puppet by greedy aristocrats, enabled by her feudal system. Where was she when they mistreated the commonfolk with their newly seized, but conveniently divided power? In an act against justice and against their inherited responsibility? When I, a child, was rushed away to hide with my other family? When I returned and I was traded by my father's treasonous court to the monsters I've abetted, loathing myself for every interaction, who made me a tool and a game and tortured me so my very dreams scream at my soul, took away my life's years and joy and levity along with my family? Where was peace and justice when it suited anyone but Rhea staying the sole seat of power in Fodlan?"

She calmed down, her voice becoming as steady as her never-wavering hands, whilst Seteth's colour recovered. He had paled increasingly as she ranted, a decade and more pain and suppressed rage off her chest in a way she had never allowed herself the release of, and looked utterly shocked at what he had heard. As ever when there was danger, Byleth was unreadable, her face stone. She knew much of this but never this much expressed at once or as vehemently. 

"And, Seteth, I can see that this view is a surprise to you. Maybe you think this is all vengeance too, for what was done to me and mine and Rhea's part in ignoring it…" 

He did interrupt, then. "Then you would be justified in your upset, but not in your actions, and directing your revenge on the wrong person. You implicate the Agarthans, old enemies that we suspected were involved with you as soon as you revealed yourself alongside unusual soldiers in the Mausoleum, and before that we suspected might be involved in Tomas and Monica's disappearances and replacements. You strengthen them with your narrow sighted lashing out, attacking the target you can see, whilst we, who could defeat them again, die at your hands. No, you have even worked with the men who tormented you and used you. That is twisted in itself."

Finally Byleth spoke up, still eyeing Seteth with all the caution and readiness of a hawk staring down a snake coiled near her handler. "El isn't acting out of hate for you, or revenge. She's fighting Rhea first because this is the only order possible, to dispatch all foes, and because Rhea needs to be stopped too. It's not just the wars and Duscur and what happened to Edelgard. She's been enforcing an approach to religion that I know and she knows is false on all the nobility, anyone with power has to acknowledge her as the source of it. The Goddess is real, whatever El thinks, but the way she is used as an excuse to control people is not true faith. In addition, Rhea is keeping the continent, which should be progressing given the periods of relative stability we've had. Research is stifled by the Church and the system that leaves the powerful comfortable and not wanting change. Common folk are utterly dependent on how virtuous their lords are, and we've seen good families lose their lands recently to lords who mistreat the people. And good families lose their way. You have my word that if we can depose Rhea without killing her, I will convince Edelgard to make it happen, but we may not have that option the way she's acting, and the idea that she would ever see her way as at all flawed and step down is belied by everything I've seen of her, as good as her intentions are.”

Shaking his head, Seteth no longer seemed angry, but bitter and still upset. “You, child… You could have been so much more. You both could have. I’ll admit I have grown wary of the direction Rhea has been heading for a long time, and I had hoped that my presence, and Flayn’s, could improve things. Her sense of certainty has continued to grow as her empathy for humanity, for all her wish to help them, has waned, and she has justified suppressing growth with belief in her own perfect system, ignoring its faults or blaming them on humanity. She has fought against autonomy in the guise of knowing better and swapped freedom for security as if every one of you is a babe, and her obsession with recreating what has been lost has only grown despite my presence. But you, Byleth, you were her answer, you could have healed her. Instead you have both fought for those who hurt you, those who experiment on Crests and you. You have desecrated holy places and the bodies of the dead, Rhea’s dead for which she will never forgive you. You have put my child at risk and let monsters use her blood to create abominations.” Judgement was harsh in his voice, steel in his eyes. Then he sighed.

“But your intentions were higher than I claimed, I can see. You both also saved my child, and helped us in a matter of not a little importance. I know that you have both fought hard against your supposed allies, and it did not all seem an act, even from you Edelgard, when you strove to rescue blighted villagers in Remire. And I agree with some of your worries. Rhea’s fitness for leading this world is fading, and I agree she will never accept that or see the truth that she needs to find a successor, not without a push. You have done huge amounts of harm in how you have approached this. But we are where we are. What was so desperate that you needed to speak to me alone here? I hardly think you are one to beg for understanding or forgiveness you know I shall not give, Edelgard.”

“No. Though, despite accepting that many will see me this way, I still feel this burden with more pain than you seem to allow me. And if using the bones of your dead people is a sin, if experimenting with their blood and souls on poor human lives is evil, then once again look to your mistress.” Byleth looked confused at that, so she turned and spoke to her lover gently. “I will tell you more later, my heart, but suffice to say that we have more in common than you thought.” She turned back to Seteth. “I did not know what the enemy intended to do with Flayn’s blood, it seemed to me that we could use it to access the Relics more readily. And I made sure through my man that she wouldn’t be harmed. I did not expect what happened to the villagers either, and whilst Thales and I worked in parallel against Rhea, he was never my ally nor our aims the same. It is he that I work against now, by speaking to you. I don’t ask you to betray Rhea or even to leave her cause, though I hope you will do the latter. If I fail, if I die and all my other plans go awry, as they might, someone has to know how to take Thales down.”

***

So, as quickly as she could, but making the key facts clear, what they knew of Agarthan spies, which agents they had, and where Hubert’s trove of information was hidden in case they all perished, Edelgard revealed her emergency plan. Seteth, for his part, stayed silent except to ask practical questions, and when he snarled at the discovery that the Agarthans had infiltrated Rhea's forces and Faerghus' command too, and even seemed incensed at the thought that they would spy on the Empire too. "I am sure that as soon as war with Rhea looks over, or they think they can guarantee to win without me, I shall find an assassin waiting for me in a servant's skin, or poison in my tea. I shall have to be ready for them, but it may well be that I win this war and die nonetheless. That cannot occur. I fought Rhea first because I could not fight Thales yet and needed access to him to learn enough to take the war to his people, and because I couldn't fight Thales and depose Rhea without even more bloodshed. Do not mistake me though: if I had stayed back or chosen another side, this war would still happen. A shadow war that is inevitable too, through Dark Magic illusions and assassination and subterfuge for certain, and if I die that's the threat your side will face. But the physical war would have happened too. I am not their only piece, not even the only piece in Enbarr, and whilst I could tell you some of the others - Cornelia for example, or several Imperial nobles such as Lord Arundel - I did not know enough of them to have stopped them pulling the trigger for this war whose ingredients have baked for decades and stewed for centuries. No, this way I could control the conflict and make sure Thales didn't win or sneak away unscathed. But if I die someone else needs to be able to finish the task."

She had spent years avoiding such blunt candour, even with Hubert who knew everything and she trusted with her life. This was the third time she shared such deadly secrets and heavy burdens in a few months, and at once she felt a thrill of liberty and the sensation she was falling without control. Like she wasn't Edelgard any more, a woman constructed of steel and self-imposed rules and restraint. The thing that connected all three confessions was her love beside her, Byleth an anchor for her sense of self as El hurtled through existence shedding layers of carefully composed armour.

She had never been gladder to have her here to steady her. _ If I didn't have her now, or hadn't had her crack my walls of ice five years ago, who knows what would have happened? Would I have lost myself entirely in the role of the Emperor? _

Still, even with the area as well protected against spies as feasibly possible, surrounded by her vigilant friends and warded against interfering or viewing magics, it was still terrifying to make herself so vulnerable - not just emotionally, speaking words that would surely force Thales' hand against her, that would cement his suspicions that currently balanced against his need into concrete fear. Because she was nearly there. After a decade of plotting and scraping away at secrets and of Hubert risking his life to tail the bastards after meetings and feigning indifference to the things she had done to stay in this game, the knowledge and the means were so close. Now she just needed to protect her back against a vengeful Rhea and Dimitri and start her slow, silent war and the execution of an execution years in the making.  _ You made me a weapon, and soon I'll finally be unsheathed for Justice _ . 

As her exposition finished, Seteth nodded. He turned away. "Well, Edelgard. I think you might yet make the world a worse place and made the wrong choices for the right reasons. I can't forgive you and I blame you, untrusting and arrogant child, for much of the harm we see tearing us apart today. But if it's a choice between you or Agartha reborn, it's no choice at all. I will aid whoever is left standing to purge the world of that evil for good, whether it's Dimitri, Rhea or you. Other than that, I could happily see none of you ever again, treacherous student and perfidious teacher. Rhea can burn too. Her orders have grown more troubling and I am done with small-minded politics and trading of lives. I didn't return to the world for this. I wash my hands of you all until it comes to face a greater evil than your petty vengeances. My men can choose to die with Rhea or join me and my daughter."

He walked off, striding through the undergrowth towards the remnants of his forces, out of the grove that stood soundless bar the snapping of twigs beneath his feet. Then he paused, still a long way from the green light breaking through the edge of the foliage. "I trust my Wyvern is still around somewhere?" "It's safe with your soldiers. I honestly will try to spare any living soul that I can. If any surrender, they will live."

Another pause.

"I believe you. Well, you've earned another truth, though you won't thank me for it. You've won today, and you'll win this war, I believe. The plucky humans aided by monsters against the domineering immortals again, only this time you will win. You were right, Rhea lied about the last war, saying the Elites fought by her side. They didn't. She lied and claimed she gave them the Crests and Relics because it hurt her less than acknowledging what was done to her slumbering kin. Yes, the Elites of old sided with the so-called King of Liberation, but they weren't heroes of humanity against an oppressive god then, even if there is some truth to your stated cause now. They were all bandits who slaughtered sleeping innocents, an entire race, for power, envy and the hatred of those who pulled the strings. That is why I will help you destroy Agartha again, why my true hate is only for them. That's your precious Legacy, not the lie of heroes Rhea uses to control you but not the glorious liberators your ignorant predecessors told themselves they were. Greedy, brutal thieves whose actions you reminded Rhea of, who wounded her long ago and made her this. Puppets of a worse master. As, for all  **your** better intentions, have you been."

And with that, El silenced by grief and guilt and unable to retort, he left.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry so much for the delay! I've been really busy but also I found this really hard to write and rewrote it several times.
> 
> I'm still not 100% happy with it. But the next sections are ready in my head and I need to build up momentum.


	13. Dark Shadows Cloud The Mind

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Edelgard is shaken by her talk with Seteth and loses herself in art before someone special interrupts

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the delay!
> 
> Two chapters today though, and we are getting to the exciting bits!

Edelgard brooded in her tower.

Not literally a tower: she had refused to take the closest thing to that, Seiros' master bedchamber directed above the audience hall that was a throne room in all but name. She was not an archbishop or leader of any church, and could not bring herself to take quarters belonging to such. Maybe she'd make her own chamber when the war was over, if she remained here at all, and leave that gaudy monstrosity to whoever led, with less absolute power and more focus on actual education and the support a religious foundation ought to focus on, the reformed Church of Sothis. Someone would, hopefully Mercedes or Marianne or Annette if they agreed to, though that was a consideration for another day. 

No, she kept her old student room, to remind herself that she was still a student in many ways and that humbleness, tempered with earnt pride, was worthy. The tower was purely metaphorical. The brooding was not.

It had been days since Seteth agreed to her plan in principle and left Seiros, no, Rhea's army with Flayn. Since the Church forces had failed to take back the Monastery and Seiros' army had been held to a stalemate in the valley and harried as it fled at the arrival of further Imperial forces, scampering with their tails behind them despite inflicting significant casualties (including two of her most loyal retainers, General Ladislava who had kept her safe as head of her Guard for years and held off the Goneril armies in Leicester so Edelgard's device could work, and Randolph, her trusted commander, who had led her personal forces and the army that repelled Rhea) as they had taken far more. The fanatic army was in disarray and driven away. The Kingdom was vulnerable, with some lords coming to her side, and Dimitri holed away at the fringes as her raiding forces started their probing attacks from the coasts and mountain passes and the air. Her invasion had just begun, from both nations she held and the once-neutral ground she now occupied, forces Claude had promised in Almyra apparently ready to aid them, and Adrestria and Leicester were secure for now and political and social changes currently well underway with difficulties being ironed out. Ferdinand and herself had put together an adept council. Caspar's father led the military attack on Faerghus with trained competence. Hubert had, he thought, almost completed his vital investigation into their final foe and set plans in motion to begin a shadow war as soon as it was necessary. Rebellion was floundering. She had the support of much of the common folk and increasing numbers of nobles, especially in Garreg Mach where Yuri and Mercedes had led efforts to rebuild villages harmed by the Church military actions and feed and heal civilians affected. All should be well. They were well on their way, if they made few mistakes, to winning this war.

But it was not. Seteth's words had left a scar, and with things in order, and no further political progress possible until her council finalised the 

fine-tuning of details in current issues, and no strike missions she could feasibly join for now, they had time and space in her mind to sting her. That and her worries about what the Agarthans might do next, whether they would wait for her to vanquish Dimitri and Rhea before making their inevitable coup against her (doubtless having many pieces in place to do so - the only people she trusted for sure hadn't been replaced by them were those she had known for years) or the harms they might cause innocent people across her lands, had left her in a dark place. It was one thing being confident (you had to be or there was no hope of picking any path) you had made the correct choice, a choice she had made after agonising for years after her torture, after coming to the Academy to see if there were any other way, baiting her fellow House Leaders for clues that involving them could be anything but a disaster that killed them all and watching Rhea for signs that she might change or be peacefully disposed only for realise in horror how impossible that was. It was another to have that belief strained not only by years of war you knew had had a scarring impact on so many, even if you also knew it would have come more brutally under someone else's watch, but seeing your soldiers and commanders who had protected you for years die in such a stupid attack by the enemy, one that harmed them far more than Edelgard's own forces, and then to be reminded of the impact of her choices by a man she respected despite everything. To be told she was a bad person with a voice full of scorn whilst the callousness of war and the idiocy of fanaticism claimed lives before her eyes.

So with nothing constructive to throw herself into for now, and unable to face the world and look into the eyes of soldiers whose friends and family and comrades had died on her watch, she sank herself into one of her passions instead, one she rarely had the leisure to explore. Creativity. She drowned herself in art, something she had taken pleasure in since she was a small girl - she couldn't even remember when she had started, sadly, thanks to her patchy memories. In an ideal world she would be quietly living with her love in the country, painting and reading and eating sweet things. That wasn't the life she was destined to lead though. 

The second she picked up her pen and brush, she felt a levity totally at odds with the last few days - the last 5 years, really, since she had been able to balance her attempts to investigate Rhea and the Agarthans and set her plans in motion with the bloodless camaraderie of classes and cooking with the Professor.  _ Maybe that would ease me, too.  _ But cooking with Byleth, much like sparring with her, felt too entwined with the conversation her old Professor had witnessed with Seteth for now. She couldn't face her easily.

Plus it lacked the flow, the true canvas for expressive creativity that art did, the depth with which she could get lost. She could improvise when she played strategy games and fought, skilled enough there, and some others could turn culinary arts into a true creative exercise but for her this was where the capacity of the exercise and her own capability with it allowed for something that meaningfully held a piece of her to be created.  _ Here, I can create, rather than destroy as I am destroying so many lives across Fodlan. _ It seemed a vain hope to feel that ability to nurture and do absolute good, untainted by the decision to kill and let die and break the world to reforge it, in her future, a hope she founded her motivation on but one she knew would always fall under scrutiny. Right now though she dismissed the future and lived in the presence of her benign creation. 

She started tentatively sketching out the Monastery from the perspective seen off the top of one of the nearby hills, to get her eyes, mind and hands used to these natural but underexercised skills again. There were mistakes, for her body was much more used to wielding an axe than graphite these days, but she grew in confidence, shading and detailing with increased nuance. Then she moved, the focus on what she was making and the simplicity of it all cleaning her busy, hurting mind, onto a more personal subject.

She started with a sketching of her love's face, to accustom herself to portraying the face that filled her dreams, to capture the character of her, strong and kind and quiet until she shocked you with a sudden quip or instinctive action. It was rough but the essence was there. So she moved onto something more narrative.

Her mind's eye had been fixated on images of her Byleth in her martial finery since the first time she had seen her unleashed in this war, treating combat like a ballet by Myrddin Bridge. This feeling had only been fuelled by every subjective view of her love in her light armour with pleated skirt flapping in the wind as she surveyed the battlefields in Derdriu and Garreg Mach, master of all she saw and El's protector, a fierce goddess of noble war and security. The sunlight on her cyan hair and the gleam off her steel, the dynamism captured in an instant of stillness but readiness, prepared to explode into fluid movement once she was sure of her next action - this was the picture burned into El's vision, lovely but strong and indomitable. 

She had to put it onto canvas to have any chance of clearing her head properly. So she started, using an expressive style of broad strokes and intentionally blurred details for the rich colourful background of the famous town and its bridge, whilst putting excruciating detail into the fall of light on the water and Byleth's sword and the kinetic force of her stance, static but vigilant and a blink away from furious motion. She lost herself in it, the creation of little mortals about to face her deity, the simple strokes for the goddess herself capturing her swelling shape and power before revisiting with a tiny brush for the details of her gear and hair - her face hidden in shadow by the angle of the light, making her even more mysterious and imposing.

By the end she was satisfied, a decent amateur's attempt at capturing a moment in time and the essence of her guardian in combat. The vacuum that emptying her mind of that image created was filled almost immediately as she considered Byleth in her other divine presence, the beautiful, kind, patient but firm love goddess that had pulled El from her depths of her despair and shown her love and affection she still couldn't convince herself she deserved. Images of Byleth in peace, dressed for the ball or lying by her side filled her, but were quickly displaced by a more lurid, explicit picture that sent heat to El's cheek and… elsewhere…

The scene she pictured was purely imagined but vividly real, and borrowed from the wonderful exploration she had had of Byleth's perfect body. And so, now hungry to make it a reality in paint if not actuality, El began to paint…

It was a raunchy piece, scandalous enough even for a maverick artist, the type of thing a noble lady, and how El hated the implications of that phrase and the suggestion it should come with any restrictions - at least Rhea's power dissuaded some of the more misogynistic lords of the Empire, men she had mostly deposed now, that their inbuilt assumptions of female fragility were nonsense - would raise eyebrows and gossip at seeing nevermind creating. For a leader like Edelgard to be involved in such a work, so licentious and graphic and overtly sexual, was unthinkable. Or would have been.  _ This prudishness around sex is another thing Fodlan needs to grow out of, after the more urgent issues it has. _ She did too, so ingrained was it that she couldn't help but feel embarrassed by what she was painting. The taboo of it though… it was liberating. 

It was growing late, the light outside of her oil-lit room dimming noticeably, but she was nearly done. She was struggling with the proportions and depiction of Byleth's sex, visible in the shocking position she had depicted her muse in, legs apart as she straddled on a seat, completely and gloriously nude. Getting the balance of delicacy and raw sensual power across was harder than she had expected, and the colours and shapes had to be just right to unapologetically seize the eye without breaking realism. With only her memory and imagination to aid her, rather than her actual model, it was tricky indeed and she couldn't quite satisfy her perfectionism, refraining from committing to her painting as she doodled test attempt after attempt on scraps of paper. 

_ The great Emperor… drawing a dozen little quims. Who will believe this anecdote in the histories? _

Suddenly there was a creak and then a pattering noise and El's blood ran cold.  _ Rats! _ She hated them, feared them to an inexplicable degree, not for any inherent features but because their squeaks and scurrying brought her back into the darkness of Enbarr's dungeons whilst she waited for her next 'treatment' and the agony that accompanied it. Whilst she waited to see if she had lost another brother or sister that day. 

Suddenly the chill of the evening deepened and the dark seemed to ooze into the room through the crack of her door.  _ Byleth! I need you! I need someone… to hold me…  _

She could face blades, danger, monsters, death… treason, a whole world against her, had survived battles and assassination attempts and magical torture that had scarred her very soul. Thanks to the last tribulation, she could not face the dark, spirits and rats.

The invader at the door of her most private sanctuary of all, the dorm at this academy where she had felt as loved and free as ever in her life, betrayed itself with an unmistakable squeak.

Unable to control herself any longer in her exhausted and brittle state, she gave a little scream.

There was silence.

And then…

A louder tattoo of footsteps, urgent ones, thundered closer and closer, drowning out any rodent thief’s fleeing screes.  _ Of course. My bodyguard. She must think I’m hurt or in danger.  _ This could be chastening _ , _ though it still pleased El, in some ways a realisation of the silent plea she had just made.

Byleth must have been guarding the room from nearby instead of any of the regular watchmen, because she arrived, slightly out of breath, rapier drawn and cheeks pleasingly pink tinged, in mere seconds, asking a question with her eyes when they did not see any assassins or injury.

“Professor! You didn't hear anything just now, did you?”

Her erstwhile defender looked torn, the quirk of her mouth suggesting she was on the point of making a jibe, but she settled for: “Are you ok?”

  
  


“Of course I am! It's nothing...nothing at all.” El felt her cheeks burn as she decided to admit the cause of her outburst, mortifying as it was.

Before she had a chance to answer, Byleth searching, glorious gaze fell upon her own eyes. “Are you sure about that?"

The knowing tone touched a nerve, and El retorted, breaking her resolve to tell the truth. 

"I told you it was nothing and I meant it…"  _ No, I shouldn't lie to her, not Byleth _ . If she laughed, it was still better than deceiving her. "Ok, it's just... Well, there was a rat. I don't enjoy the company of rats. I believe I've told you about this before...about when I was held captive beneath the palace. There were a lot of rats there. To this day, I just…"

The attempt to disguise the pity on Byleth's face was nearly as painful as the thought of her teasing.  _ I don't deserve your pity, my love. _

That thought vanished in an instant, replaced by horror as she spotted Byleth fixing on the first portrait she had drawn of the other woman, imperfect and not fine-tuned yet.  _ Which is worse in her eyes, the rough quality, or the fact that I've been drawing her at all? That's the least embarrassing one though, I must stop her from seeing the others, especially the last one… _

Byleth had moved forward to snatch it up, and El felt a spike of panic.

"What's this, Edelgard?"

"What? Oh, no, Professor! Leave here at once!"

Byleth, sensing this was not a time that required the obedience of her Emperor's authority but rather a personal matter and so one where they would be equals ( _ until she realises the sexual context… _ ) started to lift it to her face to examine it, and Edelgard anxiously poured pathetic excuses forth, to no avail.

"I recall now that Hubert needs to speak with me!" 

El swooped in to tear the paper from her grip, and hurried to bundle up the other drawings, hoping with all her heart that Byleth hadn't spotted them or at least caught a good glance at the intimate view of the final painting or the dozen attempts she had made to capture Byleth's feminine petals on canvas. She kept talking, desperately adding anything to distract the now smiling soldier.

"I must change my clothes. Now. Whatever you do, don't look this way." Everything was in her arms now, though she wasn't sure whether she was managing to hide the contents of them.

"El, I already saw it…"

"Then forget what you saw! That's an order!"

"Hey." Byleth placed a steady hand on her shoulder, instantly calming the storm of worry inside. "There's nothing to be ashamed of. I'm flattered, especially as they are really good. But it looks like you could do with some help on that last, ah, adventurous image."

_ Oh dear. _ She had seen everything then. El felt her face going scarlet, before she realised Byleth had been using her pet name throughout. She opened her mouth to explain herself, knowing flattery or not, lovers or not, painting someone naked and exposed like that was utterly bereft of decorum. Imagine if Byleth had done the same to her! She might have died of humiliation. Before she could utter a word, the green eyed beauty stopped her with a hushing gesture of her finger. El looked at her face, confused. She didn't seem remotely upset or ashamed. In fact, if El didn't know any better she'd say Byleth looked hungry. 

They hadn't done anything together, not sexually, since their liaison in Derdriu, though they had been enjoying one another's company in general. El knew that was about to change, saw the need in Byleth's face and felt it in herself. The utter lack of disappointment she had been sure to see there after Seteth's tirade against her filled El with hope, and the thought of the blissful oblivion of pleasure and pleasing Byleth and the cleansing waves of love she would feel afterward swaddled in her lover's arms and body, these were almost unbearably calling to her. 

"El, if you are going to draw all of me, it would be better to have the real thing here to view, no? And for that, you only had to ask. Have to ask."

She gulped, her mouth suddenly as dry as a fireplace. "Please let me draw you, Professor."


	14. A Portrait Of Our Lady As A Scarlet Orchid

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> El and Byleth express their passion for each other once more

Byleth sat there now, utterly bare and in the exact pose El had imagined, legs parted and her delicate little pearl and shell on display beneath a canopy of trimmed hairs.

_ She's as excited as I am by this. _

That much was obvious as moisture glistened on the lips between Byleth's thighs. Edelgard, aside from when touching herself or being touched by a lover, had given little thought to her own sex or how it would look. Thinking about female reproductive anatomy, or male for that matter, and its aesthetic qualities wasn't something El had really dwelt on at all, but faced with the view of the most secret place of the woman she had fallen for, actively focussing on it as she tried to recreate it perfectly in shades of pink oil colours, she couldn't help but be struck by its beauty. There were folds like the pretty petals of a lily with subtly varied rose colours that melded so softly but boldly stood out against the milky cream of her skin, untouched by the sun's glare, coated in a dew that shimmered in the oil-light. She thought she saw a drop, like rain caught on a blossom until the reluctant flower gave it up to the parched earth below, fall and splatter on the floor, but it could have been her imagination too vigorously stimulated, expanding on the already captivating truth. She shaded furiously, depicting a depth of shadow that hinted at the delectable honey-well in the centre of those folds, the dainty geometry of each as it curved in its own unique shape an art form in itself. She used lighter shades to show off the gleam on her prominent pearly bud, just out of reach of Byleth's fingers that were roaming through short hairs, each a tiny stroke with her finest brush, to sit sultrily, inviting the eye and the imagination. Just minutely enough not to disturb the painting, Byleth was toying with those hairs and pressing just above her most sensitive place.

She finished the picture of Byleth's intimacy to her satisfaction, she added detail from her live model to the lush beauty of the rest of her body, curves at her hips and full breasts, points now erect, sentinels of her lust. The ripple of muscle beneath a thin layer belly fat that turned her legs to jelly to behold. 

_ Goddess, how she makes me feel... _

El was in a trance-like state, only Byleth existing for her but in two discrete ways: as the muse, the focus for her art, feverishly being poured out onto the page with El the mere conduit, but also as the object of her lust, of the raw arousal that filled her now. The combination was disconcerting, she barely felt like she herself existed - but then, that was somewhat cathartic. 

Finally she finished, making it clear by putting down her brush and staring between the two beautiful Byleths, the woman and the portrait, both pure and sexual and making El feel like she was a djinni, a being of unadulterated fire. Byleth saw, and saw the look in her eyes and gave a gentle smile. She crooked her finger and beckoned. "Well done El, my good girl." That phrase made her visibly quiver with desire.  _ Oh my. _ Whether it was because Byleth had been her teacher or part of her need to give up all the responsibility and authority that weighed her down the rest of the time and embrace pleasing someone's whims for once, she would remember that those words, "Good girl", turned her to mush. Right now Byleth could demand any act of her, anything of her body, and the sheer act of obedience, of proving that phrase right, would bring her to the brink of orgasm. _ I needed this freedom tonight. _ That's what the art had offered too, but the evolution into the beautiful act with her lover was even better. All her troubles and burdens and doubts put aside for a few hours. "You've been so good giving my little kitty," she had never given their parts a pet name before, and comparing her vulva to a cat made little sense at all, but somehow it worked, making El even more eager, "all your eyes attention, but she wants some more of you. Come over here, El," that pet name was a caress from Byleth's lips, "and get your reward."

Her fingers draw El in, inching towards Byleth's soaking garden, teasing as she continued to point to El's destination, before with a soft moan that nearly made the salivating artist melt right then, Byleth started to touch herself, slowly twiddling around her little nib but avoiding it directly before she let her outer fingers settle, stroking, on that spot as her long, talented pointer slipped halfway into her hole. A hole that suddenly sucked in El's vision, her sight narrowing until like a dark sun it dominated her view and her sky.

On arms and legs that felt like they were formed of the water that was now flooding her undergarments, El crawled towards the flower she had perfectly captured on paper, towards the building, enticing, irresistible scent of her aroused goddess and the little mouth and black hole that demanded all her attention. 

When she was halfway there, seemingly taking forever, Byleth commanded her to take her clothes off. "We can't be getting my naughty juices on your nice clothes, my sweet." Shaking, El struggled out of all her clothes, naked and vulnerable on the floor as she continued her descent towards ecstacy, finally arriving at the beautiful "kitty", the smell now so appealing and powerful that if Byleth had told her not to lick and moved away, El would have begged and promised anything to bury her face in it. As it stood, Byleth did the opposite, telling her to kiss it, at first the two gentle with each other: El's tongue probing that delectable well and lapping at the juices across the whole length of the rolling folds, her nose tickling the sensitive bud there and making her giddy as she heard her Byleth groan and wiggle with anticipation, all while Byleth stroked her hair and her ears, keeping the long locks out of her nectar and tugging oh so mildly to tilt El's head so that she stared into the loving eyes of her transient mistress, promising to keep her safe. 

Soon things escalated, with mutual silent agreement that neither could explain, and El found herself elated as she was ground into her lover's valley, her head now held fast by a warrior's unbreakable grip and now yanked hard by her hair, forcing her to eat, drink and breathe Byleth, her tongue delving deep into her then her mouth fastening onto her clitoris, suckling and then, after a moment's deliberation, nibbling, in a way that made Byleth produce a guttural, animal sound and push her in harder. 

Her goddess came soon after that, and El was sure she had overflowed herself just from the sensation of pleasing her. 

Nothing tasted as good, a complex brew of sweet and tangy and rich meat, as Byleth. Not food, not wine nor tea, not the seed and nectar of her previous lovers when she had taken charge before giving up on the chance of pleasure beyond the superficial. She melted into the soup of Byleth's joining, licking more and more, barely able to breathe, until she was pushed further down as Byleth repositioned herself on the seat, bringing her mouth to a second hot entry point with a firm push at the back of her head once more.

The message was clear, and the sordid act demanded of her, the inherent surrender of power it implied, made El desperate to comply. 

She tasted Byleth's rear passage, blessedly clean but still musty and nutty, licking at first then kissing then invading past the muscular rings with her ransacking tongue, her nose now in the middle of the Professor's cleft and driving her on with that scent she couldn't help but lose herself to. She worked and dug and pressed until Byleth was a quivering mess, breaking character to beg for release, El in a transcendent state of domination through submission and obedience, feeling unearthly satisfaction at what she had done, finally joining her hands with her mistress's to finish her off a second time, fingers entering both holes and rubbing every sensitive spot till they could barely tell which belonged to whom. 

Byleth erupted, her quivering shattering into floppy heaven.

Then after a few minutes, she took care of El, completely and utterly, making her squeal, and come and feel utterly dominated, and owned, and loved and safe. 

After a while just resting naked with each other on top of El's covers, minutes spent feeling warm and sated and worthy, the shadowy demons of the last few weeks crept back into El's mind, threatening to extinguish the warding light Byleth had set there. She turned, hesitantly. "Byleth, if I ask you something do you swear to answer honestly, even if it hurts me?"

Those gems of turquoise turned to her, wide with concern. "Of course, El. I will always be honest with you. But whatever is wrong?"

"Am I a bad person? Or a well-intentioned idiot? Has everything I've done just made things worse, like Seteth said? Have I…" she swallowed back the lump forming in her throat - she could appear vulnerable with Byleth unlike any other but she still didn't intend to make a spectacle of herself in front of the person she most respected in this world - and pushed on, "Have I broken the world?"

"Oh, El…" Those safe, strong arms scooped her up and held her. "I don't believe so, though in the end nobody will ever know what might have been otherwise. You certainly aren't a bad person, not in my eyes, and damn those who are shortsighted enough to think so. Maybe things could have been better with another path, but as you said Thales wouldn't exactly have let things lie, his plans concocted over centuries, nor attacked in the same way that we could predict, if you'd told the others and acted openly against him. Even once you'd acted, Claude did little but wait so why assume any would join your side unpushed? And I don't think Rhea would have seen reason, nor been a viable long term solution. To mend an already broken world, hard decisions and risk have to be taken."

Tears were in her eyes now. "But so many have died because of me!"

There was sympathy in Byleth's voice now, but firmness too. Byleth the commanding was what she needed. Not a stooge to tolerate her low mood or try to appease her, but someone she could trust to be brutal if El's truth was a painful one and to give her tough love to knock the self-pity from her. "And Thales' own war, or his coup, would be bloodless? Rhea's vengeful pre-emptive scourge when she found the depth of the infestation, that would spare the innocent unlike every other time she has done the same? And the worlds either left, would the sum of injustices inflicted be an acceptable price for avoiding blood directly on your hands? Grow up, El, you know better than that."

Her chin was now in the hollow of El's shoulder, hugging her love tight. "And if we are wrong, if we made the wrong choice, what good does changing course now do? Then we do leave a world that is truly broken at the mercy of those who slither in the dark. No, as Kyphon once said 'Second-guessing is for the planning room. Certainty is for war' and we are at war."

_ She is right, of course _ . Byleth always seemed to be right, unless it involved general knowledge about the world. Then she was often amazingly, adorably ignorant. "Thank you, sensei."

"It's not a problem, El. I'm here to support and protect you, even against yourself. Besides, I know you too well to ever think you a bad person, or to let you think one of yourself."

Now settled, El fell into the first good sleep she had had since returning to Garreg Mach, wrapped in her Byleth cloak. 

The next morning, she felt energised. Maybe she was wrong, probably she wasn't. Her information about Seiros' past and the initial wars that formed Fodlan may have been false, but that didn't change what had happened in more recent decades. Either way, she couldn't let an enraged, baited Rhea let out over a millennium of furious, suppressed anguish on the world, and she was done warily watching Thales and keeping all her moves to the future. 

They were at war, and her armies and generals, right now, were handling Rhea and Dimitri. Her allies had penned the Kingdom in and her forces were already pressing Faerghus' back. She would lead the charge later on, when Dimitri or the Archbishop revealed themselves or when they approached Fhirdiad itself. If a task on that front appeared for her shock forces she would throw herself and her Imperial Sword into the fray, but right now Hubert was right: it was time to hold back, to direct the pieces and not to risk herself, however vindicating that might be, on that particular war-map.

However, now was the time to start a final war, its very beginning phases at least, lest a full strength Agartha, uninvolved truly for all Arundel's posturing in Edelgard's conflict with the Church now, sprung on her the second she won here. 

_ Seteth was right about one thing. It's time to act against that enemy. _

The chance to start that action was closer at hand than even she expected. 

Thales, or Arundel as he seemed, had started to be more brazen with his own preparations against her. The other day both Yuri and Hubert had reported from their spies that he had visited Derdriu to try to collect the Hero's Relics and other great weapons of the Alliance. Fortunately that hadn't been unexpected, and Edelgard had worked hard with her mages, led by Lindhart and Hanneman who had collaborated as excitedly as children at a show, to create convincing but ultimately useless replicas. Whether they fooled Thales for long or not was not key: either way he had shown his hand, and Claude and Hilda had the true items safe with them in Almyra.

The Relics and Crest Stones here in the Monastery were watched night and day by a full unit of her personal guard as well as powerful wardings set by each of her magic users, none known to the others but each asked to provide as complex and dangerous a binding or trap as they could devise. All except the Sword of the Creator, that none by Byleth could wield, that was. 

Hubert came to her that morning with news that the smug snake Thales (in his guise as her uncle) had visited in the early hours of the morning, asking for their assistance managing cursed 'Beasts' (El's fists tightened at that, recalling how blindsided she had been to discover her reluctant allies had used the tools she had provided to turn innocents into monsters at Remire - that was her greatest sin, she thought, whether intentional and informed or not, as she should have guessed Agarthan plots would treat human life with such contempt) in a place they called 'The Sealed Forest'. It was a mission for a few key fighters, the space restricted, and surely held another element of an ambush, but it was an offer they wouldn't refuse, because Hubert had almost collected all the information he needed to pinpoint the Agarthan hideout and learn everything he needed to about their magic after all these years, and he felt this chance to be exposed to their technology and the imprints of their spells would be invaluable. 

Who to take would be easy. Most of the Eagles were already away, split along two other missions. Petra had taken Bernadetta to save her homeland Brigid from an attack from Church-loyal forces, along with Dorothea, Felix, Mercedes, Caspar, Annette, Anna the merchant and Jeritza. It was a worthy cause, both aiding a vassal state and potential ally and acting against dangerous fundamentalists to protect Petra's family. Victory would bring Brigid fully into the fold. 

At the same time, the details obscured from herself but authorised by Byleth, whom she trusted with her very soul, Lindhart had led Leonie away on some quest for weapons that would be useful to their cause (he said), taking Lysithea, Alois, Constance, Balthus, Hanneman, Manuela and Sylvain.

With Lorenz still helping hold the fort in the Alliance, working with the released Raphael and Ignatz as well as the nobles Judith Von Daphnel and now subdued Holst Von Gonerill to pacify the region and protect it against insurgency from the Kingdom lest they tried to make it into a weakness, that left Edelgard with Hubert, Byleth, Shamir, Ferdinand, Hapi, Yuri and Marianne.

She sent for them all. And all arrived, ready to prepare to travel on their mission the next day. Except for one. 

"Your Majesty, I can't find Marianne anywhere…"

Nobody could. Except the monastery's long-serving (the man had worked under Rhea, but claimed to take no sides except for they who held Garreg Mach, and the man was so odd Edelgard had believed him) gatekeeper, who had seen her leave into the forests surrounding the great aedifice, forests also rumoured to be cursed. Other witnesses in the Monastery had seen her upset, seemingly on the verge of tears, after a discussion with an infamously acerbic Crest Scholar who had pilgrimaged here in the last few weeks, part of the resurgent trade that had sprung up since they renovated, or mostly renovated, the ruins left by Seiros' eruption of rage five years ago. 

_ A Crest Scholar talking to Marianne… Ah _

"I think I know where she has gone and why. Arm yourselves everyone. We have an extra task tonight to save our friend. I will explain on the way."


End file.
